


Trying and Failing

by megamazing



Series: Telltale Signs [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Oblivious Clark, POV Multiple, Really they're giant dorks, Slow Build, batfamily, justice league - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-04 01:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6635326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megamazing/pseuds/megamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn’t know exactly when the problem started. No, that wasn’t quite the truth, it was a lie. Brucie for sure couldn’t tell you; Bruce could, maybe, estimate just about when it began; but Batman knew.  He was in denial. </p><p>The dust is finally settling in Clark's life, but that sort of thing never lasts long for superheroes. There is a time to be understanding, and there's a time to start admitting what it is you want.</p><p>The boys are slow on the uptake, and Dick Grayson is sick of it.</p><p>A storm is coming for our heroes, where will they be when it hits?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Doesn't Do Well With Goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing SuperBat, and dear lord this ended up being way longer than I thought it would... Some of these scenes have been bouncing around in my head for awhile now, and others jumped out at me while writing because these boys don't like doing what I want them to. As much as this is a Clark/Bruce story, Dick Grayson also features quite a bit, because I adore him. 
> 
> Like the tags say, this is a sloow-burn, but I hope you think it's worth it! This first chapter also has lots of Bruce-monologuing (little bit of Clark, too), but dialogue time increases as the story progresses, not to worry. 
> 
> This work doesn't have a beta, so please let me know about any annoying mistakes so I can fix that as soon as possible! Editing my own stuff is the bane of my existence~

BRUCE

He didn’t know exactly when the problem started.

No, that wasn’t quite the truth, it was a lie. Brucie for sure couldn’t tell you; Bruce could, maybe, estimate just about when it began; but Batman knew.

He was in _denial_.

That much was absolute. He had always been very good with distraction, whether he was distracting an opponent or himself. Brucie drank and “slept” the complications into oblivion in the same method he had perfected to an astonishing (and somewhat unsettling) degree. Batman threw himself into his work and his training – there was always trouble in Gotham, and Tim could always use more practice with his left kick. Bruce didn’t get out much, so that was nonissue.

So yes, denial was a well-worn safety blanket that shrouded the entirety of Wayne manor, and it had been around long before the aforementioned complications really began. The only difference was that now there were now heavier things for it to conceal, things that needed concealing at all costs. It was a constant guessing game for Alfred as to when it would finally come undone.

\----

Batman may have been one of the only members of the League that didn’t hate monitor duty, and the only reason he didn’t assign himself the job more often was simply because his city needed him more. There was something about the task that was as calming as it was important. He could throw all of his focus into it, and suddenly three hours had gone by without notice.

Even still, he knew that Superman had been standing behind him for the past five minutes. If the Kryptonian wanted to stare in silence at the back of the cowl, that was his problem. Batman wasn’t about to acknowledge him.

But eventually, like always, the silent stalemate was too much for Clark. He came around to lean against the console, positioning himself right in Batman’s line of sight. How subtle.

“Not now, Superman, some of us have work to do.”

Clark sighed, a quick puff of air that was more than enough to tell Batman he was still agitated. For years he had been telling Clark to work on concealing his emotions, but the man could never quite get it right. “Honestly, Bruce, I don’t see where your problem is.”

“I’m sure there’s a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere in Metropolis, if you really need something to occupy your time,” Batman answered stiffly.

Clark was talking about the JL meeting that had ended just before, one that had ended with Batman and Superman arguing about the best course of action, as usual. Clark was adamant that the two should go undercover, alone, while Wonder Woman and Flash infiltrated a second target location separately.

Clark pursed his lips, shifting almost unconsciously into one of his standard _Superman_ positions; muscled arms crossed over his chest and legs spread a shoulder’s width apart. Bruce would have rolled his eyes if Clark wouldn’t have seen it. “What exactly are you objecting to? Diana and Barry work well together, you can’t deny that.”

“As I already explained, J’onn and I should go if you insist on having pairs. Or, as I also reminded you, I can do it alone.”

“And as I said, we need J’onn here in the Tower, and we do this as a team.”

“If you came here just to rehash points already made, I think we’re done here. Now, if you’d allow me to get back to-”

“So it _is_ just me that you have a problem with?” Clark interrupted.

One moment of silence to keep his pulse in check, and then he answered, “What is the point of my being on monitor duty if I’m not actively watching the monitor?”

Clark scoffed. “I think we’re both well aware you can multitask.”

Batman breathed in through his nose, biting back on the immediate sarcastic reply that snapped into his mind. It didn’t do well to go _there_ – that was dangerously close to flirtation. Too close. Bruce had already decided to keep his conversations with Clark in check, and crossing that carefully placed line was out of the question.

“And anyway,” Clark continued, ignoring Batman’s scowl, “Barry’s taking over your shift in less than two minutes.”

“Keeping track of my schedule, Kent?”

“Like any good leader would.” Superman flashed him a shiny grin that was so genuinely Clark it made Bruce’s chest squeeze irrationally. Batman growled in response, shoving away from the monitor at the same time Flash zipped into the room.

“You know the kiddos hate it when Ma and Pa fight,” Barry teased, his easy going smile enough to make Batman scowl harder.

“Get to work, Allen.”

Barry laughed, not fazed in the slightest. “So I hear Wally and Dick are taking a few girls out to the movies this weekend, hard to imagine the boys as grown men, huh?”

It wasn’t, actually. Dick had been his own man for a lot longer than Wally West, despite being a few years younger. As Batman started to walk away, Superman frowned. “Hey where are you going? We were having a perfectly civil discussion!”

Barry threw up a cheery hand in goodbye. “Nice chat, Bats.”

Batman left the two other men behind, hearing their gripes about him echo as he made his way through the Tower. Good.

Unfortunately, tonight was not his lucky night, and he ran into Hal in the Hall just as he was about to exit trough the teleporter.

“Bruce!” Hal called, jogging up to Batman. “Just the bat I was looking for.”

“What is it, Lantern?”

Hal winced. “Ouch, touchy are we? Doesn’t matter. You see, I just wanted to tell you I was stepping out of town for a while, if you know what I mean,” he said, gesturing his hand out as if fluttering out into space. Batman simply raised a brow, despite knowing Hal wouldn’t be able to tell through the cowl. Hal continued, “John’s coming with, and Guy, so it’ll just be Kyle here. There has to be a Green Lantern on Earth, no matter what happens.”

“What _is_ happening?” Batman asked, interested not so much in Hal’s life, but in what it could mean for Earth. A problem for the Lanterns was usually a problem for the entire universe.

Hal waved his concern away. “Just, could you watch Kyle? Not like a pet or a kid, or something, but look out for him? He doesn’t need a babysitter, that’s not what I mean. Hell, I don’t know if I know what I mean. Kyle can handle himself, sure, but it’s all still new to him. Maybe I’m being paranoid. With this job, you kinda have to learn as you go. He doesn’t trust himself, not yet, and I . . . don’t know when we’ll be back.”

“Why not ask Superman, if you’re looking for a role-model?”

Hal snorted out a laugh. “Because Clark doesn’t do subtlety. If I asked Clark, he’d try to be the guy’s new best friend. You won’t. Plus, you have experience with this sorta thing. Right? I mean, Dick’s out on his own now and he hasn’t gotten himself killed yet.”

Batman grunted.

“Exactly. Good talk,” Hal said happily. Bruce took that as the end of the conversation, nodding his agreement, but Hal put a hand to his shoulder to stop him from walking away. Bruce looked down at the hand. “Just one more thing,” Hal added, his voice far more solemn. He was quieter, and a quiet Hal Jordan was unsettling. “Why me, all those years ago? Why did you tell me who you were, first?”

The question caught Batman off guard. “Why do you ask?”

Hal shrugged and, not for the first time, Bruce was surprised by Hal’s seriousness. The man was genuinely worried about something. That was _never_ a good sign. “I’ve just been thinking about the day we met, a lot, recently. All of us. The day all this started. So why me? It couldn’t have really just been because I’m loud, because we both know D’s got a set of pipes to rival Arthur underwater.”

Bruce paused, taking the time to choose his words. “I saw then what you could be, Hal, what you are today. Past all the bullshit and bravado, there was a man who wanted to make a difference. Do something, make something, real. We needed you that day, and we still do.” He knew Hal caught his hidden meaning when the other man’s eyes darted down, avoiding eye contact.

“You’re a good man, Bruce.”

“You have a home here, Hal.”

“I know. There’s just something I have to do.” Then the cocky smile was back, and Bruce was reminded a little of himself, or a version of himself. It was not a good feeling. “It’s not like this is goodbye forever. Tell the others for me, will ya?”

“You should tell them yourself.”

“Probably,” he agreed, a sly grin masking more emotion. “But I know you’ll do it anyway. John won’t come up to say anything special, he’s talked to Shayera already. And Guy sure as hell won’t bother, we both know that, so tell the group for them, too. I’ve got one last house call to make before I go, so as long as the world doesn’t start ending before that, this is where I leave you. Oh! Just, _one_ last thing? Real quick.”

Batman sighed audibly and tilted his head, waiting.

“Tell him, Bruce,” Hal said earnestly. “Even if nothing comes of it. Before it’s too late and you have to leave the planet and there isn’t any time left. Life’s a bitch, and we get the worst of it most days doing what we do, so just tell him. For me.”

Batman stood frozen in his last expression, not one ounce of him betraying any emotion other than the extended patience of the moment before. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Hal grinned, but there was something else behind it that Bruce’s trained eyes couldn’t ignore if he wanted to. “I’m not asking you to spill your guts to me, Bruce. It’s not my business. I know that’s ironic for me to say right now, since I’m telling you how to live your life, but regardless. Tell him with the time you have left.”

With one last clap to the shoulder, Hal was gone. Bruce Wayne stood in the Hall for a long moment, totally alone. He couldn’t think about what Hal meant now, that could wait. For now, he had patrol to busy himself with.

Thank all Diana’s gods for that.

\----

Bruce had loved before. Romantically and otherwise. He loved Alfred. He loved Dick and Tim like his own blood, and he had loved Jason too, still did, although that love was useless now that he was gone. They each loved him back, he knew, in their own, separate ways, in some form or another, for better or for worse. But Bruce also knew he wasn’t an easy person to love.

Once, he had joked that Alfred’s love was nothing less than a case of severe Stockholm syndrome, and that joke had gone over about as well as one would expect. Jokes were not always his forte.

There had been women that loved him, too. Selena, who had loved Batman and toyed with Brucie, but who hadn’t been able to handle Bruce when it came down to it. Talia, who had also loved the bat, but had never even seen Bruce. Not many people ever did. Rachel Dawes had, but the Batman had been too much for her, and he wouldn’t ever hold that against her after all that had happened.

There were also the many people who had loved (or _thought_ they loved) Brucie, and maybe a few currently did, but that sort of love was a distant thing. It was better off that way. Alfred had long since given up hope of little Wayne’s running around the manor, but between Dick and Tim, he was satisfied enough with Bruce’s happiness. Or at least he didn’t prod at Bruce about his happiness half as much these days.

It was impossible to be the world’s greatest detective and not know certain things about oneself, even if one didn’t want to know, and especially if one was better off not knowing. He knew Bruce was too intense. A side effect of the life he lived, undoubtedly.

Bruce too intense, Batman too dark, and Brucie too frivolous. All, not ever enough.

Therefore, Hal Jordan was certifiably insane if he thought any of that would ever change.

And that was forgetting the ever-relevant fact that even if _none_ of the rest applied, the truth would be pointless and damaging to not only those directly involved, but for the team as a whole and, ultimately, for the world they defended.

Yet, if there was one thing Bruce Wayne had learned since his parents had been murdered, it was that feelings were unavoidable. No matter how much training he underwent, or how much he evaded and self-destructed, they found ways to creep into his mind and his heart without his consent.  

The lone, dark knight was surrounded by a family he himself had created without even realizing it. Look at the Robins, and now Nightwing. Oracle. Huntress. Batwoman. Cassandra. Even Jim, to an extent, not to mention most of the League. If his goal was to isolate, as he had originally intended, he had failed. Miserably.

Bruce had never been one to have friends, but he couldn’t deny that many of the League were just that. Then there was Superman. Clark.

_How had Hal known?_

Bruce threw the cowl down on the chair in front of his own, familiar computer station in the cave. Most of the monitors were running though tox-screens testing a new strain of Scarecrow’s fear toxin and diagnostics of the blood of a few of Ivy’s latest victims. One was still running algorithms attempting to find Joker. _That_ was another mess entirely.

“B. You got a sec?” Oracle’s voice pipped through the com still in his ear after the long night of patrol.

“What do you have?”

“Check your third screen.”

The monitor flashed white for a moment as it switched to mirror Oracle’s. They were crime scene photos, all bloody. It looked like a mundane murder scene, not something that warranted Batman’s immediate attention. As he flipped through the file, Bruce stopped. The fifth photo was of a wall, with messy writing in what looked like the blood, probably the reason for the mess surrounding the body. Even after zooming in, he could only just catch the words:

_Come the Day of Reckoning / Man of Steel_

“In Gotham?” he questioned, already knowing the answer, but asking anyway.

“Yep. Near Ivy’s last known apartment.”

“She’s in Arkham.”

“Currently,” Oracle assured. “I thought you’d want eyes on this. Nightwing is still out, if you want me to send him over to the scene.”

“Do it, then send him to the cave.”

“Consider it done. Oracle out.”

\----

“Have you called Big S?” Dick asked, swinging his leg wide over the bike as he parked it in the cave hours later.

“No,” Bruce answered flatly. “What did you find?”

“Nothing other than what Oracle found in the file. Other than the body, the area was clean. Shouldn’t you call him in?” Dick pressed.

Bruce grunted. That was the last thing he planned to do that night. “It’s late, and there’s no need.” He was still pouring over the information, and looking into the identity of the deceased, one Victor Graves, who had worked for Star Labs for the past ten years. No next of kin.

Dick just nodded, knowing there was no helping it. “Where’s Tim?”

“Upstairs. Asleep, if he’s lucky.”

Dick’s eyebrow went up, questioning. “You didn’t wake him up for this?”

“He’ll be briefed tomorrow.” Tim had worked himself to the bone the past day and during patrol earlier. Bruce wanted to give him a rest even if he would be hell to deal with tomorrow because he wasn’t woken up immediately.

“And what do I tell Supes when I see him tomorrow?”

Bruce swiveled in his chair to face Dick. “Why are you seeing him?”

Dick crossed his arms and shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “Some people like seeing me outside of work, as crazy as that sounds.”

Bruce frowned at the obvious dig. “We have dinner every week,” he countered. Sure, he’d been busy lately, but he hadn’t been pushing Dick away. Again. Had he?

The barely concealed expression on Dick’s face was enough to tell him he probably had. “That’s different.”

“How so?”

Dick rolled his eyes dramatically. It was what he did, aside from straight avoidance, when he didn’t want to reveal emotion. “Bruce, that’s tradition. We’ve been doing that since I was twelve.” He saw Bruce about to argue, and held up his hand. “Ok, ok, let’s forget that. My question still stands. Are you asking me to lie straight to Clark’s face?”

Not when he put it that way.

“Fine. Tell him tomorrow, if you really think it necessary.”

“You would want to know if someone was writing ‘ _Batman sucks_ ’ in a dead man’s blood all over the walls of Metropolis. So would I, come to think of it.”

Bruce didn’t have an answer for that. Not one that didn’t have him admitting that Dick had a point.

They were quiet a moment, Bruce typing away on the computer and Dick shuffling his feet in a way Bruce would have scolded him for before. But things were different now, and he was trying to be better. Finally, Bruce caved in and spoke first. “Weather report doesn’t look pleasant. Might have trouble trying to get all the way back into the city tonight.”

“Oh, really?” Dick asked, failing miserably at nonchalance yet again. He was better than that, Bruce knew, but again Bruce didn’t call it out for fear of starting another fight. “Probably wouldn’t be too smart to take the bike out if there’s a storm,” Dick hedged.

Bruce grunted in affirmation. They both suffered another moment of quiet, the stray bats squeaking out as if calling them both out on their bullshit.

“So, uh. Would it be too much trouble if I…” Dick let the question hang in the air, like he was afraid of finishing the thought.

Bruce turned in the chair to look at him, nodding. “I haven’t converted your room into a third gym, yet. Feel free.” He hadn’t touched a thing in that room, and probably never would. It belonged to Dick, whether he wanted it or not. This time, at least, he seemed to appreciate it.

The uncertain smile on Dick’s face killed Bruce just a little, and he found himself smiling back. Dick nodded quickly, and stalled just a moment longer. “Goodnight, Bruce.”

“Breakfast in the morning,” Bruce responded. “Alfred mentioned something about planning to make blueberry muffins.” That was a lie, but Bruce knew Dick loved Alfred’s recipe. He would make sure to talk Alfred into making them before heading up to bed. Then Dick grinned, and the moment was over.

Bruce watched him hurry up to the stairway, a familiar warmth burning in his chest. Every time Dick came home to spend the night, Bruce felt a little more at ease. The worlds felt a little more manageable. It hadn’t been an easy transition for either of them, Dick leaving to out on his own. As well as the fighting that caused it, and the fighting that had continued for such a long time after. There had been a long time in which the two stubborn men had not spoken to each other, but now Bruce knew he would never make that mistake again. His pride usually came first, but it wasn’t worth that.

Still. It was a good thing, Dick working on his own. Good for him to grow into his own without Wayne manor and all its baggage looming over him every day. Without being suffocated by the shadow of the Bat. But that didn’t mean that it didn’t fill Bruce with a happiness he didn’t deserve every time Dick came home, and a small pain when he inevitably left again.

Their Sunday night ritual of a family dinner had stayed in place even when Dick hadn’t shown up, and it was just Bruce, Alfred, and Jason. Barbara had come a few times in the past, but not in a long while, now. Alfred had been the one to originally start the tradition, insisting that Bruce spend non-crime fighting time with his new ward, Dick Grayson all those years ago. Now that they were talking again, Bruce knew he and Dick would hold onto those days with every last fiber of their being, no matter who else came and went.

Tim would be thrilled to see Dick in the morning too, and Alfred would be silently pleased in his way. The house felt a lot brighter when they were all home, as if together they could keep away the dark.

\----

CLARK

Clark walked with an easy smile on his face, pushing his glasses up his nose as he nodded his head at the people passing by. He always looked forward to lunches at the diner with Dick, and it’d been a few weeks since they had been able to set something up. Plus, he’d gotten to talk to Kara on the phone earlier that morning, which always put a smile on his face. It would still be awhile before he got to see her in person, but that was ok. The quick phone calls would do for now.

He saw Dick’s bike parked out in front as he neared, and jogged up the few steps to meet him inside.

“Hey there Clark,” Dick called, waving him over. “I got here early and ordered you some pie, hope you don’t mind.”

“Me? Mind a slice of pie? And here I thought you knew me pretty well, Dick. I’m wounded.”

They shook hands, Dick trying his best to get a reaction from Clark with his strength. As always, it didn’t work, and Clark winked when he saw the kid sulking. Not that he was a kid anymore, Clark corrected himself. Wow. Barry was right – it was trippy every time he realized how much older Dick had gotten. He was no longer the thirteen year old Robin scowling at Batman’s side.

“How goes the Planet?” Dick asked as Clark sat down with a thump against the leather.

Clark chuckled. “Lois has got Perry up the wall with her latest Moroccan embassy scoop. You’ve never seen a man redder than Perry White when he argues about money, Dick, believe me.”

“I don’t know about that. You haven’t seen Alfred when we come in tracking mud through the halls. He’s silent, but deadly.”

A pretty, blonde waitress with smiling eyes came up to their table. “Morning Mr. Kent, the usual I’m assuming?”

“Sure, Sara, that’d be swell,” Clark answered, flashing her the goofy grin that always seemed to make her happy.

Sure enough, her smile brightened and her steps seemed a little bouncier as she moved. “Great, I’ll be right back with that pie, too.”

Dick rolled his eyes, chuckling to himself. “I don’t get it,” he declared as soon as she was back in the kitchen.

Clark frowned slightly. “Don’t get what?”

“How you always do it. And how you’ve managed to stay single these past few weeks! I mean, come on, that girl would jump through rings of fire if you mentioned you liked that sort of thing.”

“Your circus is showing,” Clark teased. “I’m just polite, you should try it sometime.”

Dick shook his head. “No way, it’s more than that. You’ve got to have some secret alien pheromone hidden under all those baggy suits.”

Sara came back with the pie and mug of coffee, and this time when Clark looked at her, he realized Dick might be on to something. She didn’t look at Dick once, even as she handed him his plate; her eyes were glued on Clark. Even as she walked away, he caught her looking over her shoulder.

“Honestly, no one else ever looks twice at Clark Kent. It must be how often I come here. Maybe I need a new spot…” he mused to himself, taking a bite. It couldn’t hope to compete with Martha Kent’s apple pie, but it was as close as a big city like Metropolis could manage.

“So how are you and Lois?” Dick asked. “I mean, you managed to say her name without cringing like you’d just been stabbed.” Clark knew he was curious, could hear it in the way Dick tried to keep his voice light. That meant that the subject was going to be unavoidable until he got answers, so there was no point in stalling.

Clark sighed. “Today we spoke about five words to each other in total, so I’d call that progress.”

Dick winced. “That bad?”

“Oh, worse, believe me. But we’re better for it. She’s certainly better for it.”

Dick’s face went a bit harder, and in that moment he reminded Clark of Bruce. “She’s an idiot, is what she is. You’re better for it, Clark.”

“Hey,” Clark admonished. Even as he said it, he had to admit it did feel a little good to have someone so resolutely on his side, even if the loyalty was misplaced.

“It is,” Dick insisted. “As your friend, I have a right and a responsibility to say that.”

“She wasn’t wrong to leave me. We haven’t been the same as we used to be for a while now.” Deep down, Clark knew their relationship had changed months ago, and that it was only because of Lois’ stubborn streak that she stayed as long as she had. She deserved better, he knew that. She deserved more than a best friend, and that was what he mourned now. The loss of his best friend, and his closest confidant in the world aside from his mother. But if he were really honest, she hadn’t even been that for some time.

Death strained a relationship, naturally, and they hadn’t talked as openly and honestly with each other as they once had. Most fiancées didn’t have to deal with what happened when their dead partners woke up again. Theirs was always an unusual situation, and that was a fact, but everything had a tipping point.

“What about you?” Clark asked, changing the subject before Dick could rush defend him again.

He got _The Shrug_ in response. A key sign something had happened with Bruce. Clark knew Dick better now, and so he waited where he once would have pressed the issue. Sure enough, after a few minutes of silent eating, Dick spoke up. “I stayed over at the manor last night.”

Clark beamed and reached over to swat Dick’s arm lightly. “Well hey, that’s great! How did it go?”

Dick smiled down at his food. “Good. Breakfast with Bruce and Tim this morning. Alfred nearly cracked a smile like five different times, it was like it was someone’s birthday or something.”

“I always envy the amount of control Alfred has. I’m sure there are trained ninjas with less restraint.”

“There are. Us. And _he’s_ …doing alright. You know how he gets with work.”

Clark cleared his throat, hoping for nonchalance with a light tone. “I didn’t ask.”

Dick’s grinning expression told him he had been anything but nonchalant. “But you wanted to! You forget, Mr. Kent, that I am a brilliant detective. There’s something else though,” he added carefully.

Dick’s face had taken on the calm he only ever showed when discussing a case, or a particularly nasty writing assignment from school. But no, Clark reminded himself, Dick had graduated ages ago so it wouldn’t be that.

“Are you sure this is the right place to talk about it?” Clark asked, careful so that no one would overhear. Not a difficult feat, as the only other people in the diner were Sara, the cook, and a couple in the opposite corner.

“I won’t go into gruesome detail, but I thought you should know. Last night, a killer left a calling card in Gotham. The _‘Man of Steel’_ was mentioned in the same sentence as _‘day of reckoning’_.”

Clark frowned. It sounded pretentious enough to be Luthor, but in Gotham? “No one thought to tell me this last night? I could have been there quicker than-” he stopped mid-sentence, and rubbed his hands over his face. “Bruce. Of course it was Bruce. Will you be in trouble for telling me? I can make something up about seeing it in a police report, something for Planet research.”

“No need,” Dick assured, but he didn’t look happy about it. “Bruce knew I was going to mention it today.”

“He knows you’re in Metropolis?”

Dick shrugged. “He didn’t have a problem with it. No worries, big guy, you aren’t in trouble with tall, dark and broody.”

“I wasn’t asking for my sake.”

“Again, Clark, you didn’t have to. I just figured you’d want to know.”

Clark nodded, his mind racing in two separate directions. One, who was calling him out in Gotham of all places. And two, what he would say to Bruce when he confronted him about it, because that was inevitable.

“Clark, you with me?” Dick called out, waving a hand in from of his face.

“Sorry. You were saying?”

“I’m assuming you guys are going to that Lexcorp shindig this Friday?”

“You know I can’t talk shop, Dick. You’re not League. Not yet.”

“Yeah, yeah, but more importantly, that totally-not-a-mission gives you an excuse to talk to Bruce and worm your way into the investigation, right?” Dick had finished his own food, and was now starting his assault on Clark’s. Clark may have put up more of a fight if his concentration hadn’t been so divided. _Reckoning_?

“You’re very presumptuous today,” Clark noted.

“I’m just as presumptuous as I always am. You’re just getting old.”

“I’ll probably outlive you, you know.”

“We’ll put that theory to the test eventually,” Dick challenged, grinning again. “Until then, you’re old.”

Unable to help himself, Clark grinned. “It’s good to see you happy, Dick.”

Dick sat back in the booth with a sad smile. “I wish I could say the same, but you don’t look good.” His bluntness was refreshing on one hand, and brutal on the other, yet another thing he shared with Bruce. “Are you sure I can’t set you up, Clark? I now some very eligible young ladies, and maybe a few guys, that would fall flat on their faces for a little Midwestern charm.”

Clark laughed out loud. “You think another relationship will help? No, I think I’m good for a while, Dick. I’m not even sure I _could_ get back into something again.”

The concentrating frown morphed into a diabolical grin. “I can always egg her house.”

“Kara already offered, and no. Besides, she’s staying with her parents until she finds a place. It wouldn’t be fair to the Lanes if they woke up to see their front yard sunny-side up.”

“Damn,” Dick lamented, and he actually looked disappointed. That was a little worrying. It was a good thing he and Kara didn’t really talk, then Clark might be in trouble. “I was kinda hoping you’d say yes. I never got to do that, growing up.”

Clark rolled his eyes lazily. “As if your childhood was uneventful.”

Dick just smirked. “You got me there. Now,” he stared, rubbing his hands together rapidly. “Can we talk about Grey Ghost? I finally finished the last episode up last week, and we need to discuss.”

Clark felt himself relax into the familiar excitement of talking about something he loved. These lunches with Dick were almost enough to make him forget everything else weighing him down. Yet, he still saw leftovers of the loneliness in Dick Grayson that Clark had hoped would fade as his relationship with Bruce mended.

Perhaps it was just easier to pick out because it mirrored his own.

It wasn’t just the loss of Lois’ conversation at work that affected him, but the all too sudden lack of her presence in his life. Though it had been a few weeks, walking into his apartment still felt like walking into a freezer. It was cold and empty, and everywhere he looked reminded him of what he had lost. His bathroom sink now only contained his toothbrush, toothpaste, and hair gel where at one point you could hardly even see the porcelain for all the products cluttering it. His tiny apartment felt huge without all the parts of Lois that had collected there over the years.

The space where a painting had hung on the wall, one she was gifted in Belize for her Pulitzer Prize winning expose, now only showed the hole in the wall from when Clark had tossed her shoe over his shoulder in the amorous moment after he had proposed to her over two years ago.

It wasn’t just the losses that stung. There was also the package he couldn’t make himself open laying on his dresser. He knew what was inside, the ring she had mailed back to him. After their breakup, she had taken a vacation, and mailed it back to him from there. Diana said he was punishing himself, but really it was just plain cowardice. Opening it meant fully accepting that it was really over.

Clark really shouldn’t complain so much, though.

He had the league, he had his mother, Kara and Dick, and Conner (though their relationship was strained on good days). Still, Lois had been his tether, and now he was left floating out in the open. Then there was Bruce, the final complication he had forced his mind to stay away from years ago. Not that he had ever been very successful at staying away. Obviously. If he had, he might be married to Lois right now and not stuck avoiding his own apartment.

Not that it mattered, as Bruce was now avoiding _him_ at every opportunity. Bruce hadn’t been this distant since Clark had gone on his quest to befriend the Dark Knight, and that was a long time ago, when the League only had seven members.

Clark had learned quickly that patience was the key to getting to know Bruce Wayne, and Clark had always been willing to be patient. He knew that he was lucky to know the side of Bruce the rest of the world so rarely saw, or even recognized when they did. The side reserved only for his boys and Alfred and the quiet solitude of the bat-cave. Clark understood that better than most. He was Clark, but he was also Superman, and Kal-El, and the mild-mannered reporter persona. Those distinctions had a tendency to blur uncomfortably for himself, but not everyone else.

Though, Clark knew he was much more open with those he considered friends and family than Bruce ever was. Yet, knowing that didn’t make the slights and burns from the other man hurt any less. Maybe Clark was just too sensitive. That was probably true, but it didn’t change anything.

\----

Saying goodbye to Dick after they had finished and heading back to work at the Daily Planet was harder than it should have been. He wanted to fly to Gotham. He wanted to talk to Batman about the writing on the wall. He wanted to make Bruce explain what the hell had been going on with his most recent mood swings.

Clark had tried, the other day in the Tower, to get Bruce to finally say what it was about him that was so terrible to be around, but that attempt had been stonewalled by the cowl. Then, as if by divine intervention, Clark remembered he had a communicator with a direct link to Batman. But, that conversation would still have to wait until the work day was over.

“B? It’s S.” Clark spoke through the device, hours later, tossing his messenger bag on the couch and loosening his tie.

A beat of silence passed before the familiar static cracked in his ear. “Dick told you.” A statement. Clark had long since given up hope for pleasantries with Bruce, though he still tried more often than not. Tonight was different.

“He did. You should have called.”

“Is this league business?” Bruce asked shortly, almost like a dismissal.

Clark almost groaned out loud, but settled for gripping the bridge of his nose and taking a breath. “It could be. What do you know?”

“From what I know so far, the case is isolated. Can we discuss this later? I’m on patrol.”

Clark frowned, looking up to the clocks on the shelf. The one set for Gotham read half past nine, just an hour time difference, but later than he thought it was. Scratching the back of his head he replied, “Of course. Ah, see you tomorrow then?”

The goodbye was a quick, “Batman out,” and then the familiar static click that told him Bruce had turned his own off.

If he wanted, Clark could call up Diana. Even if she was fighting some unholy beast, she’d pick up. He’d seen her do something like it once, Steve had called her and she had kept up a decent conversation while fending off a horde of hell-beasts from another world. She was, without a doubt, one of the most impressive people Clark had ever seen in action.

So was Bruce, Clark thought, but the man was never one to bother with unnecessary conversation, and certainly not when it distracted from the mission. All the small talk between them over the years had been instigated and driven by Clark. Except of course, when Pa had died and Bruce was unusually sympathetic. Clark didn’t much like thinking about that day, but it often featured in his dreams. The way Bruce had looked him in the eye in that unnerving way of his and said, “That fence looks like it could use fixing.”

A simple thing to say, and the fence was obviously falling apart, but those few words had meant more that day than all of the heartfelt condolences he heard at the wake and the funeral. The fact Bruce had even come was a surprise in and of itself. Even Lois was shocked when they saw the pristine, black sports car pull up the dusty, dirt road.

They worked on that fence until it was too dark to be practical while mourners trickled in and out of the property throughout the day. They drank Ma’s spiked cider on the porch, and talked as if they weren’t Batman and Superman. As if they were only ever Clark and Bruce. As if nothing else mattered. Clark could count the number of times he ever felt like that on one hand, and he hadn’t since that day.

_I can’t be your consolation prize._

Lois’s words had hung around his neck like an anchor ever since they split. He hated he had caused her pain, and hated that he had tried so hard for so long to force things to be the way they had been. It had only hurt her, not helped.

And so Clark slipped out into the night, cape billowing behind him, keeping watch as his shining city slept.

\----


	2. Makes Demands Without Explinations

CLARK

He knew exactly what Bruce Wayne thought of his too-big tux as soon as the man climbed elegantly out of the sleek convertible. Lightbulbs flashed as he watched Brucie pose for photos with a stunning blonde model in a dress redder than the carpet they walked on, surrounded by the calls and shouts of reporters. Clark’s voice was one of them.

“Mr. Wayne! Mr. Wayne! Care to comment on Lex Luthor’s new business venture?”

He watched Brucie laugh and squeeze the waist of the blonde, whispering something in her ear before she giggled and moved on ahead to pose for photos. “I’m sure my company has made many a statement on Luthor’s latest scheme, why not take from one of those?”

Clark squeezed between the pushy crowds, finally reaching Bruce. “If I could get a moment of your time, Mr. Wayne?”

“Maybe I can think up an interesting tid-bit or two about old Lexxy, what paper did you say you worked for?”

“Daily Planet, Mr. Wayne.”

Brucie snapped his finger and wagged it aimlessly, as if just coming to a sudden realization. “That’s right, you’re Perry’s man!”

“I’m surprised you remember me, Mr. Wayne.”

“Not at all, with a sense of fashion like that, you’d be hard to forget.” Bruce grinned with a charming flash of teeth, and Clark knew he was being mocked. True to his persona, Clark let an awkward smile slip and looked down then back up quickly before fidgeting too obviously, positioning his pad and paper as if he were about to write.

“Walk with me, Perry’s man,” Brucie continued, and the two men entered the venue.

Clark saw starlets and big business tycoons littering the floor before a grand state set up with podium and row of chairs behind. He suppressed a frown. Luthor’s speeches always made his skin crawl.

“Do you really not own anything that isn’t from the sale rack at Big n’ Tall?” Bruce commented in a low voice as soon as they were away from the crowds.

Clark would have been offended, if the suit choice wasn’t deliberately unfashionable. “Hey,” he accused with mock offense. “Not all of us have paid shoppers and a closet wider than the interstate.”

Bruce grunted. “What can you hear?”

He focused in, listening for Luthor, or his assistant, Mercy Graves. “Luthor hasn’t arrived. Ms. Graves is upstairs, third floor. Five other heartbeats with her.” He glanced up. “Lead past the second.”

Bruce nodded slightly, a quick motion no one who wasn’t right next to him would notice. “We expected that. As soon as Luthor makes his entrance, we move.”

“Until then?”

The Brucie grin was back, with a quick wink. “Have some of the champagne, it’s probably worth more than your car.”

With that, Bruce broke away, moving effortlessly thought the crowd. Clark watched him smile and melt the hearts of every woman he walked past. A few of the men too, if Clark was seeing it right. As music played from hidden speakers in the back and couples began to dance, Clark made his way towards a waiter carrying a tray of drinks.

The stuff didn’t affect him, but it helped him blend in and look a bit less like a bumbling farm boy.

“They’re literal gold flakes,” the young waiter said, seeing Clark’s confusion at the specks floating in the liquid. The guy rolled his eyes as if saying _rich people, am I right?_

Clark smirked, tapping his press pass in a _trust me, I know_ sort of gesture. Clark always felt more comfortable with the support staff at events like these. The rich and the famous either looked right past him, or turned up their noses.

A younger, more impulsive, Clark Kent had once done a very unflattering piece on one of the more particularly cruel ones. Lois had loved it. Perry, not so much. The story ran anyway, though, after Lois worked her magic.

Clark took a sip to hide his smile. Thinking of her didn’t hurt quite so much today, so he would take that as a victory.

It took all of five seconds for Clark to find Bruce in the crowd again. As he made small notes on who was there and what they were saying, he was really focused in on Bruce and his third dance partner of the evening. This one was much bolder, and wasn’t turning to goo at his touch the way the others had. He saw the look in her eyes as they spun, and the mirroring challenge in Bruce’s.

Clark forced himself to look away. Missing Lois was the reason for the tightness in his chest as he watched them, and that was all. Yet even still, he found his eyes drifting back to Bruce and the woman every so often, as if his own body was conspiring against him.

Luthor couldn’t arrive soon enough.

Clark scolded himself for his own impatience, as there was no need for his attitude. In fact, it was probably good for Bruce to get out like this, even if it was all for show. He knew that if his job at the Daily Planet was an intrinsic part of his very being, the same must be true for the playboy, showboat Brucie Wayne.

And in any case, dancing with every pretty face that passed by was necessary for the mission because it kept up his cover. That was what Clark kept reminding himself of – necessity.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait much longer for Lex. Clark was immediately aware of the man’s presence, and even if he hadn’t been so attuned, the quieting of the music and subsequent parting of the crowd like the Red Sea would have tipped him off.

“Please, please, don’t stop on my account!” Luthor laughed, his eyes like daggers almost as deadly as his cutting smile. Clark wondered how no one else saw it.

He had to move around a pillar to keep Luthor in view, and then he saw the man walking right up to Bruce Wayne. Clark couldn’t help it, he listened in.

“Bruce, my good man, it’s good to see you in our fair city once again.”

“Well if it isn’t the man of Metropolis himself,” Bruce praised, and Clark saw the way Luthor’s chest puffed out just a little more. “It was an honor to be invited Lex, and such a blessing. I don’t get out to your side of the water half as often as I’d like to.”

“You’re always welcome at Lexcorp, Mr. Wayne, rest assured. I’m certain your company will be more than intrigued by the announcements tonight. I hope you think more on my offer.”

Offer? Clark pursed his lips. This was news to him. A more open agreement between Wayne Enterprises and Lexcorp could quickly become a problem, one Bruce was doubt was well aware of.

“Oh I will, I will,” Brucie assured him. “And you can put that on record!”

Clark began moving quickly at the signal phrase, being careful to go unnoticed. Not too difficult, with all eyes on the two richest men in the room. The only hard part was taking his eyes off of Bruce.

As much as he trusted Batman’s ability to handle himself, Clark’s stomach curdled at the way Lex Luthor had been smiling as if he had Bruce wrapped around his finger.

\---

Moments later: “You were listening,” Bruce stated as he entered the stairwell where Clark waited.

“Just doing my job.”

“And how long were you listening in?” he pressed, his eyes on the watch on his wrist. Clark wasn’t entirely sure what it did, but he knew that it had to be some sort of gadget beyond a simple timepiece.

“Just for the conversation with Luthor,” Clark assured him, rolling his eyes at the lack of trust. _That_ was nothing new.

Bruce’s doubt was palpable as they made their way up the stairs with Clark leading the way. “Is that so?” he drawled.

“Yes, really, I have no interest in listening to you toy with your latest catch on the dance floor.” Clark didn’t catch the snapping tone in his response in time to stop it from coming out. He winced internally, but didn’t let it show. At least he hoped it didn’t show.

“So you were watching.”

Clark didn’t give that a response. He had no doubt Bruce knew full well he had been paying attention, so why ask? It wasn’t in Bruce’s nature to be redundant.

“I’m sure if Lois were here, you wouldn’t this aggressive about my dancing partners,” Bruce commented.

That was a pressure point Clark couldn’t let slide. He half turned on the stair so Bruce would see his all too serious frown, then kept moving. “That isn’t _funny_ , Bruce,” he whispered, remembering they had to stay quiet the further up they went, or risk being caught by one of the guards on the floor just above.

Bruce just wouldn’t let it go, “I don’t see where this attitude comes from. You have Lois, and Brucie has-”

Clark turned, without thinking, to glare down at Bruce on step below. “I said, _not_ funny. I _don’t_ have Lois, and you know it.”

He saw a few things happen very quickly after that.

First, confusion flashed on his friend’s face, then he saw the blue eyes make a brief glance up, suddenly alert. Without any more warning than that, Bruce hopped the short step and spun toward Clark, grabbing his lapels with both hands and pushing him firmly against the glass railing.

Before Clark could react, Bruce’s crashed his lips against Clark’s mouth, moving in ways Clark’s shock kept him from comprehending, effectively silencing them both.

There was a gruff cough from above. “You aren’t supposed to be up here,” a masculine voice called down. Bruce broke away, noticeably out of breath, with a proud grin plastered on his face.

Clark’s eyes were wide, and they would probably stay that way permanently, but he registered the guard on the third floor landing, hand on his holster. He should be more interested in that, but he wasn’t.

_What was that?!_

His senses were frantically trying to keep up with his surroundings, but his eyes were glued to the side of Bruce’s head in the most unprofessional way, that he would absolutely have to reprimand himself for later. Clark really didn’t think he had enough brain capacity to help just then, as most of it was caught up with replaying the last minute over and over.

Bruce was much less effected, his playboy persona out in full, blinding force. “Oh, are there other people up here? Huh. I thought this floor was unoccupied!”

The guard frowned with slow recognition, “Mr. Wayne?”

A manic grin spread across his face. “Guilty as charged.”

The man seemed to relax after that, which Clark knew was a mistake far too many people made with Brucie Wayne. Everyone, including Luthor, underestimated him.

“Not a problem, sir. You and your, uh, _companion_ ought to head back down, now. The party is downstairs.”

Bruce put his hand to his heart, looking as honest as Clark had ever seen him. “Of course. Sorry to trouble you.” The guard nodded, and Bruce grabbed Clark’s arm as if carefully guiding a drunk person out of harm’s way. They walked down the stairs until Clark heard the guard turn his back.

“Clear,” Clark mumbled, knowing Bruce’s next move before he had to explain.

Bruce turned and quickly flicked out his wrist, sending a tranquilizing dart straight into the back of the man’s head. He hit the floor with a hard _thump_ , and Bruce and Clark rushed up the rest of the stairs to the unconscious body.

“Some warning would have been nice,” Clark whispered as he lifted the guard and carried him to the nearest closet. He twisted the locked handle, snapping it easily. Thank _Rao_ his mind was focused again.

“Picking the lock would have been less suspicious,” Bruce countered, pulling his infra-red glasses from the inner lining of his suit.

Clark gently placed the man against the shelves of paper and office supplies, letting the body slump to the floor. “We have to be fast.”

“Are you insinuating I’m not?”

“Hardly. You didn’t even buy me dinner first,” Clark quipped, using his vision to find the lead-lined doorway to the laboratories. “This way.”

“We can get you dinner after, if it’s that important to you. How many are here?”

 “Seven,” Clark answered back immediately. “Can you take them in that suit?”

Normally, Batman would be the best choice for stealthy takedowns, as Superman wasn’t as equipped. But if Bruce only had batarangs left… He looked back to see Bruce pulling up black material around his face to mask it.

“The Armani will forgive me. Alfred might not. Open it – we’ll have three minutes before the alarm trips.”

Clark nodded, watching Bruce work his tech-magic on the door. A gas canister went off as soon as it was thrown, and Clark quickly realized he never should have doubted Batman’s ability to kick bad-guy ass in a four thousand dollar suit.

\----

BRUCE

He watched Clark Kent moved through the crowd of partygoers like an ox, so unlike the way he had just maneuvered out of the building and flown them back down minutes before. From the chair Bruce sat in behind Luthor’s podium on the stage, he had an unobstructed view of the human wrecking ball Clark had turned himself into.

Bruce watched with a purely intellectual scrutiny as Clark knocked over only one drink and bumped into no more than six people total, all appropriately spaced so that it seemed “natural” to the rest of the crowd that this man was just an oaf.

The meek blush was overkill, but that was Clark in a nutshell. Bruce could just pick out his hurried apologies as he made his way to stand against a pillar, notepad and pen scribbling down words as Luthor spoke.

For his part, Bruce didn’t register a single word of the garbage escaping Luthor’s lips. He didn’t need to. Though, even if he had tried to pay attention, it would have been difficult. His mind kept going back to the moment on the stairs, when he had lost his damn mind.

In truth, Bruce hadn’t needed to assault Clark in the stairwell, and he certainly hadn’t meant for it to happen that way.

He could have gone about the guard differently, and any number of possible alternatives flashed behind his eyes now, but in the moment he had seen none of them. In the moment, his immediate reaction had been to shove Clark Kent against the railing and attack his mouth.

Bruce had clearly lost control. During a _mission_ , no less. It was unacceptable.

He had to work to unlock his jaw, to smile and clap along with the rest of Luthor’s rapt audience. Luckily enough, Clark hadn’t thought anything of the kiss, aside from the fact he had been stunned to silence. Bruce fought down the return of the disappointment he had felt when Clark had stayed all but immobile under his touch, though Bruce had expected nothing less.

Rather, he _should_ have expected nothing less, but his heart was less logical.

But then Clark had joked about it, so things between them were fine. Everything was fine. Nothing had changed, and they were _fine_. Nothing, except the way his lips were still warm from the brief touch, and how his hands refused to forget the feeling of the hideously cheap suit and the hard muscle of the chest it disguised.

Bruce laughed at a joke he hardly heard, and felt Clark’s eyes focused on him. Clark had been doing that for a while, though Bruce had been careful to look everywhere but his direction. Worse still was that he knew Clark wanted to discuss the alleyway murder case, which meant he would be expecting to meet back up at the cave.

That meant Bruce would be in a confined space, regardless of how large the cave really was, with the _one_ person he did not trust himself around.

Wonderful.

Then he remembered Clark’s unexpected anger just before the guard had stepped into view. That part made even less sense than Bruce’s own unacceptable actions. Clark had been furious at the mention of Lois, though Bruce couldn’t imagine why. Until the pieces finally clicked in his head, twenty minutes too late.

They _weren’t_ together _._

The communicator is his ear hummed, disrupting the epiphany, and Clark’s teasing voice pipped through. “Your place or mine?”

Bruce gritted his teeth at the phrasing. “Mine,” he said through a carefully constructed smile.

He stood along with the rest on the stage, grinning and shaking hands and clapping Luthor on the back like an old friend. It was sickening, but necessary. Brucie Wayne had no idea who Luthor really was, and it was going to stay that way. So he laughed and posed for pictures with the man partially responsible for more death and destruction than anyone could quantify, and tried to keep his jaw from clenching every time they touched.

\----

CLARK

Clark snapped a few photos of Luthor and Bruce, tucking the pad into his jacket. Luthor smiled at him, only recognizing the Daily Planet reporter. Despite how long Clark had lived in Metropolis, he still wasn’t used to the way Luthor looked at him with such unrestrained superiority. But he had learned to grin and bear it nonetheless.

He watched Bruce leave with a dark haired beauty, completely different from the woman he arrived with, and wondered how a living a life like that would feel. Would it be freeing? Restricting? Would it make you kiss your friends on the stairwell without presumption?

Clark didn’t think he could do it, switching lovers left and right while never having a real, long term partner. Though, having seen Bruce with his wards, he supposed there was an upside to all that money. That there was good that could be done alongside the frivolity and ambivalence. Plus, the money for charity never went to waste.

He left the building alone, trying to follow the other reporters out, and went unnoticed. He didn’t bother going home, and instead turned into an alley several blocks down from where the event was held. Bruce would be conferencing with the rest of the League on his drive back to Gotham, so Clark had some time to spare as he made his way to the Batcave.

At least _one_ of his questions was getting answered, even if it killed him. And since Bruce Wayne was the one keeping the secrets, that was very likely.

\----

As Wayne manor crept into Clark’s view along the horizon, he slowed, and listened. Alfred was cooking, Tim was training below, and Bruce was walking around, pacing, Clark assumed. Dick wasn’t home, although Clark reminded himself that Dick didn’t live there full time anymore. He was in an apartment in the city, but Clark didn’t try to listen for him. He’d promised to let Dick’s privacy be, and he kept to that promise. Most of the time.

“Master Clark,” Alfred greeted him as Clark knocked on the large front doors. He’d only managed to knock once before they swung open. It looked as if he wasn’t the only one watching the sky, lately.

“Alfred, what will it take to get you to drop the formality? I’d say death, but I’ve been there, done that, and yet here we still are.” Even getting the butler down to Master _Clark_ instead of Master _Kent_ had taken years.

Alfred didn’t smile, but raised a brow in much the same way Bruce sometimes did. “Yes, here we are, sir. Would you like to come in, or will this be the day you attempt to get Master Wayne to greet you himself?”

Clark sighed. “I don’t think even _my_ body could go that long without food, Alfred.”

“Quite. Unless he has grown impatient, he’ll waiting for you in the study.”

“Only he would grow impatient waiting on me for three minutes,” he said, only half joking as he stepped into the foyer.

“Three?” Alfred tisked. “Was there trouble on your way, sir?”

Clark handed Alfred his cape after detaching it, knowing better than to argue with the butler about outer wear in the house by now. When he wanted to, Alfred could be fiercer than Ma. Clark smiled graciously, if a bit tried. “Train derailment, nothing more sinister than an overworked conductor and a faulty track.”

“Pity. If it had been a scheme of the Joker, Master Wayne may have forgiven you for it.”

Walking up the large staircase leading to the second floor and therefore the study, Clark tried not to remember the last time he had walked up stairs that day. It shouldn’t be, but the kiss was nagging at the back of his mind like a relentless puppy. Though that was, admittedly, a poor comparison.

It had only been a plan to fool the guard into not raising alarm, and intellectually Clark knew that, but a part of him couldn’t get past it. There was nothing intellectual about what that kiss had felt like.

His mind refused to let go of the image of Bruce’s face so near his own; of the direct, demanding way he had shoved Clark back and pressed their lips together. It hadn’t been romantic, not in the slightest. It was simply what the mission required, and Bruce would do anything for the mission. So it meant nothing.

Why, then, was that moment all he could think about?

Clark knocked on the thick, wooden doors he knew to be the study and stepped in just as Bruce called out, “Enter.”

“Something wrong with the cave?” Clark asked. Bruce had called him to tell him to use the front entrance just as Clark caught wind of the screams coming from the runaway train passengers.

Bruce was shuffling papers across his desk, not looking up. “No, I had Wayne business to attend to, seeing as you were late.”

“To be fair, you called me to switch venue before I knew I was going to be late,” Clark pointed out, earning him a grunt. “Anyway, the case. Do you have any leads?”

Now Bruce looked up, finally meeting Clark’s eyes. He didn’t know what he expected to see, or what he had hoped for, but he did feel a prickle of disappointment at the businesslike expression on his friend’s face.

But of course they were talking business. This wasn’t a social call, no matter how much Clark wished it was.

Bruce stood, running through all the details he knew so far. As evasive as Bruce was, he was meticulous in giving the details of the case. Unfortunately, they didn’t know much of anything.

Clark nodded along, absorbing every ounce of the information Bruce told him. He walked the perimeter of the room, hand to his chin, as he thought. “That’s more gruesome than most of the ones I’d have on my best-guess list usually go for,” he said, thinking out loud. “Whoever this is, they want to be heard, but not enough to leave a signature. In any case, not one either of us recognize.”

“Exactly. Either someone thinks they’re clever, or it’s someone new.”

“Or, it’s an old someone working with a new someone.”

“A hired mercenary?” Bruce questioned, locking eyes with Clark.

“Could be. There are plenty of thugs out there willing to do a lot for a little money. Are there any repeat cases?”

“This is the only one, as of now,” Bruce answered. “You see why I didn’t bother calling you.”

Clark turned on him, the frustration from before finding its way back to the surface. “No, actually, I don’t. I still stand by what I said. You should have told me, Bruce, not left it for Dick to take care of for you.”

One strong eyebrow lifted in challenge, but Bruce’s voice remained cold. “That wasn’t the plan, but I knew he would rather not lie to your face. Dick still believes in lies of omission.”

Clark rolled his eyes, naturally Bruce didn’t consider omission lying. That probably explained most of the past nine years, honestly. “Of course he does, he’s a good kid.”

“Not a kid,” Bruce countered calmly.

Clark waved a hand and faced the window overlooking the garden. It was dark, but peaceful. Crickets chirped and fireflies blinked, creating a little dance across the lawn. He felt invisible bags under his eyes and the familiar weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders as his mind wandered away from him.

“Whatever you say. I’m too tired to argue with you about this.”

He heard Bruce move to the other side of the room, and for a moment he thought the man would simply walk out, like he had always been so prone to doing. Then Clark heard the clinking of glasses, and turned to see Bruce filling up two short, crystal glasses with amber liquid.

Clark frowned, crossing his arms defensively, but he didn’t know why, it wasn’t as if this were some significant moment. And it wasn’t as if he and Bruce weren’t friends, even if it would be a cold day on Apokolips before Bruce ever admitted _that._

Bruce strode over and held out one of the cups. “Drink it,” he told Clark, and Clark could have sworn he saw sympathy in those icy blue eyes. He looked away quickly.

“You know that’s pointless,” Clark teased.

Bruce tilted his head in acknowledgement, still holding out the glass. “It’ll still burn.”

Clark took it, still skeptical. “This isn’t some kind of test, is it?”

“Would I tell you if it was?” Bruce countered, moving to the set of arm chairs by the fire and motioning for Clark to join him.

“No,” Clark chuckled. “I don’t suppose you would.” He sat down with a badly hidden grin on his face. It wasn’t too often Bruce didn’t kick him out of Gotham the second their business was finished, and it sent his stomach off doing little cartwheels.

 _Don’t be an idiot,_ Clark scolded himself, _making moon eyes at your best friend has never once worked out in your favor._

The two sat in silence for a while, but the feeling was easy. Any other time, Clark would be squirming trying to strike up a conversation, trying to make sure the other person wasn’t bored with him, but with Bruce the silences were different.

That part of their friendship had taken him awhile to learn. Clark wasn’t usually the type that liked long, brooding silence, but sometimes, with the right people, it wasn’t so bad.

Suddenly, quietly, Bruce broke the calm. “I apologize for earlier.” Clark’s head snapped to look at him. Was he talking about the…kiss? He frowned, a queasy turning in his chest. The last thing Clark wanted was for Bruce to regret that. It was for the mission, after all, just the mission. He was about to say exactly that, when Bruce continued, “For bringing up Lois. I didn’t know.”

The tensing in Clark’s shoulders immediately relaxed in relief. “Oh. That’s…You didn’t?” Bruce hated repeating himself, and simply nodded in return, but it didn’t make sense. “How? I would have thought Diana told you, or Barry or Ollie, sometimes it feels like that’s all anyone wants to talk about. ‘ _How you holdin up Big Blue_?’, ‘ _Come out to Star City, Dinah and I know all the best rebound bars_ ,’ or my recent favorite, ‘ _Kara expressed interest in covering a house with toiletries in your name, would that be right with you, Kal_?’ Diana pulled that one on me last week.”

Bruce smirked, and Clark could have sworn he was holding back a laugh. “Kara wants Diana to go tee-peeing with her?”

“I can only imagine all the horrible things she’s learned about teenage revenge plots from all the old TV and movies she’s been watching. Can you even imagine Diana throwing around rolls of toilet paper?”

“It would be a massacre. She certainly never does anything half-way.”

“Exactly my worry,” Clark agreed. “I talked her and Kara out of it, thank god. Haven’t managed to get Oliver to let it go yet, and I don’t know how I’m going to turn down Dinah if she tries. She’s a force of nature. And Barry is Barry.” Clark paused. “You really didn’t know?”

“I really didn’t.”

Clark shifted, feeling the guilt for lashing out at Bruce earlier when it had just been miscommunication, and not the mean jabs he had taken them as. Afraid of scaring Bruce off with too much emotion, as this was already unusual for him, Clark turned to jokes. “I think you might have to return your World’s Greatest Detective title, now. Especially since I knew when you and Selena broke it off! Maybe your old age is getting to you.”

“Thirties are hardly old age. And what do you mean you knew? I didn’t tell you.”

Clark gestured with the half-empty glass. “Because I know you, and I can tell. Maybe I’m the better detective?”

\----

BRUCE

Of course now, when it didn’t count, it all made sense. Why the Mighty Superman had only tight smiles for the League recently, when his were usually so open and warm for friends. Why Clark had exploded on him for the quip about Lois, and why he looked so tired here in the study.

He hadn’t told Clark that this study was his father’s, or that no other person but Alfred had ever been allowed inside after his parents’ death. Clark would have read too much into that if he had. He would have been reading into it _correctly_ , but that wasn’t the point.

Bruce wasn’t ready for Clark to know how much he really trusted him. That involved too much uncertainty.

But now, sitting beside the all-powerful Kryptonian, Bruce was reminded that Clark was also a man. Not a human man, but that hardly made a difference when it came to Clark. Most days, Clark was the most human of them all. He could joke all he wanted that Bruce had lost his touch, but Bruce had picked up on the way Clark’s entire exterior shifted in the minutes since he entered the room.

He had seen how Clark had let down his guard, and shown Bruce a side to himself that Bruce knew from personal experience hardly ever saw the light of day. The tired, weary side to Superman that was bad for his image.

It made the tightness in Bruce’s chest worse, and it was why he had asked Clark to stay. Whether Clark knew that was what the offer of the drink had been about was beside the point, but Bruce liked to imagine that Clark knew him well enough to understand he was trying.

Not that anyone but Alfred had ever gotten close enough to do that.

Clark was by far the most terrifying thing Bruce had ever faced, and the most wonderful.

“Don’t get cocky, Kent,” he teased, back. It was too easy to do with Clark, and that wasn’t a good thing. So why couldn’t he stop?

Clark spluttered out a laugh, and the sound was like a beam of sunlight in the dimly lit room. Bruce couldn’t quite keep down his smile, and so a grin poked through without his permission.

“Me, the cocky one?” Clark accused. “And you say you’re not funny.”

“I’m not cocky, I’m just always right and I know what I’m doing.” _Except when it comes to you._

Clark smiled, shaking his head. “I think that statement is the dictionary definition of cocky, actually.”

“You don’t seem to mind it when I swoop in to clean up your messes.”

“Oh come on, that’s only happened a couple times, max. And are you forgetting when I came to your rescue just two weeks ago? Looks like you’re not quite so infallible after all.”

Bruce scowled. That particular slip up had been Tim’s fault, and he had paid for it by writing out a detailed report of everything that went wrong and how it could have been avoided. “I would have been fine.”

Clark tapped his chest, drawing Bruce’s eyes to the way his costume stretched over the muscular expanse in a way that…No. What kind of decent friend would Bruce be to fantasize about Clark after he had just gone through a devastating breakup and was obviously still recovering, not to mention vulnerable? It was twisted and perverted and everything Bruce hated about himself.

Clark didn’t notice, and continued as if Bruce wasn’t close to ripping out his own hair in frustration. “You’re not the one with super-strength and super speed, here. Are you saying you would have been able to fly you and Tim out of that skylight in time? Besides. If you could handle everything, the League wouldn’t exist, and I’d be out of a purpose.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Don’t be overly dramatic, Clark.”

“Hello pot, my name is kettle.”

“I’m the one giving you whiskey more expensive than a year’s worth of rent on that box you call a living space.”

“Just year’s, huh? Either this stuff isn’t that expensive or you’re overestimating the price of my humble abode.” Clark was quiet for a moment, staring at the glass with a small smile. “But thank you, Bruce.”

Bruce grunted, tipping back the glass and relishing in the sweet burn down his throat. The raw sincerity in Clark’s voice was too much. Bruce never understood how Clark could be so…open. It was as if he wasn’t afraid at all at what consequences would come of it, like sharing emotion was as easy as breathing.

While Bruce, on the other hand, felt like suffocating under the weight of it.

“I don’t think I loved her enough. Not in the way she needed me to. I wasn’t enough for her.” Clark’s voice was small, and a little sad, and it made Bruce’s heart clench.

Bruce frowned, turning to really look at Clark. He hated Lois Lane in that moment. “That is absurd.”

Clark did that puppy dog tilt, with his eyes wide and questioning. It was like a kick to the gut. Bruce stood, needing to move, needing to put space in between himself and those honest blue eyes.

“She said as much, Bruce,” Clark told him.

The glass hit the top of the small liquor cabinet a little too hard to be casual. Yes, he definitely did _not_ like Lois Lane. He briefly wondered what it would take to get her reassigned somewhere far away. Somewhere like Siberia. But Clark wouldn’t approve of that, so Bruce shoved the idea aside.

“Sometimes people just can’t fit, Clark. That isn’t your fault.”

“Isn’t it?”

Bruce turned back to see Clark standing before him, less than two feet away, and how had that happened without his notice?

“It is not your job to make everyone happy all of the time,” Bruce continued, keeping careful eye contact so that his gaze wouldn’t drift and betray him. “You can’t be responsible for that.”

“It was my job to love her. And I didn’t.”

“That’s life Clark. Some people grow apart. It is a part of the human condition.”

“That’s the thing, Bruce, I’m not human.”

He felt the tick in his jaw at the same moment he felt his hands about to reach out toward the other man. Bruce tried a new tactic, moving quickly around Clark to the desk. “What could you have done differently? Forcing love only creates more pain.”

 _I would know_ , is what he didn’t say.

“You don’t understand, Bruce,” Clark insisted.

“Explain it then,” Bruce countered, regretting the words almost instantly. The last thing he wanted was to hear about Clark and Lois’ relationship, failed or not. He didn’t want to hear about how much Clark loved her, or didn’t love her, or whatever it was he felt. Yet at the same time, he wanted Clark to trust him like that. What he wanted didn’t make sense.

Clark waved a hand in the air, the way he did every time he was exasperated. That natural expressiveness was part of what endeared him to Bruce. “I don’t want to get into it.”

“So why bring it up?”

“I didn’t! You did,” Clark argued. Bruce raised a brow, and Clark conceded. “Alright, fine. I just…wanted you to know. I don’t know why.”

Bruce didn’t know what to do with that information.

Luckily, Clark kept talking so Bruce didn’t have to pretend as if he did. “I’m sorry for snapping back at you like that.”

“Have you been sleeping enough?” The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it, and the result was a confused look on Clark’s face.

Of course he was confused, Bruce was confused, too. Asking after the personal well-being of a teammate was normal enough for literally everyone else on the team _but_ Batman. The question had just felt so natural when he was saying it, as if he were talking to any of his Robins or Oracle. Now though, it was an obvious misstep.

Naturally, Bruce kept his stony expression in place, pretending as if that was the most normal question for him to have ever asked Clark.

“Uh, yeah?” Clark sounded uncertain.

It was a blatant lie, Bruce knew. Even if Clark _hadn’t_ been entirely unconvincing, he was showing the barest hints of dark circles, and Superman didn’t get dark circles. Bruce hadn’t even thought it possible, what with the Sun’s rays’ healing effects hitting him daily.

Clark must have been able to tell Bruce could see though his bullshit, because he back peddled. “Well, ok, fine, not so much. I’ve been busy.”

“You won’t be a help to anyone if you’re sleep deprived,” Bruce deadpanned.

Clark sighed loudly. Was this what Superman looked like pouting? Bruce bit back the urge to smile. “I know, I know,” Clark placated. “I’ll head home soon, do a quick patrol, and get a few hours of shut eye in before work. I’ll be fine.”

“Remind me, how many times have I told you I’ll be fine, and you said something along the lines of, ‘ _that’s crap, Bruce, go to the med bay and stop complaining_ ’?”

Clark looked indignant. “I am not complaining. You’re treating me like Robin – I’m not your ward, Bruce.”

As if Bruce needed a reminder of _that_. Yet, he could see Clark was only arguing halfheartedly. He was more tired than he was letting on. When the next idea popped into Bruce’s head, he tried to ignore it. Really, he did. But then he took another look at the way Clark’s shoulders were slagging and it was decided.

“No.”

Clark’s head tilted, adorably, arms falling to his sides as he asked, “What do you mean, no?”

Bruce needlessly dusted off his hands, moving determinedly around the desk and back to stand in front of Clark with his arms crossed. “You’re not going back to Metropolis tonight.”

“I’m…I’m what?” Clark backtracked, nervously. Bruce couldn’t blame him, it was as ludicrous as it was obviously necessary. If he was going to damn himself, he might as well be thorough.

“You’re going to go up to one of the guest rooms and you’ll sleep until morning. Alfred!” he shouted out, angling his head toward the door but not moving.

Clark was fumbling helplessly, looking for the right words to get him out of the situation, but Alfred was faster.

“Yes, Master Wayne?” he called, stepping out behind the door less than a minute later.

“Have the blue room prepared for Clark. He’ll be staying the night with us.”

If that was surprising to him, Alfred didn’t show it. “Will I set the breakfast table for three, then?”

Bruce almost said yes, then remembered his plans and shook his head. “Just two, Alfred. I leave for the Chicago meeting in the morning.”

“Of course, sir. A few moments and the room will be ready for Master Clark.” Alfred should have known that, Bruce realized, so why had he asked? He left before Bruce could scrutinize his face any further, though, so Bruce was left without an answer.

“That’s generous, Bruce, but,”

“No but about it, Clark. I own the Daily Planet. You can be late to work.” He saw Clark was about to argue more, and held up his hand to stop him. “You said we were friends. If that is true, then you can stay here one night and get the rest you so obviously have been neglecting.”

Clark’s lips were a tight, frustrated line, and Bruce knew he had done well playing the friend card. Clark wouldn’t dare argue with him now, not when Bruce had just admitted what Clark had been trying to get him to say for years.

Bruce smiled smugly, and patted Clark on the back as he left the room. “Alfred will show you where to go. And trust me, Clark” Bruce threatened, turning back to stare at the frustrated Clark still standing in the middle of the study. “I’ll know if you stay awake.”

“Wait, seriously?” Clark asked, but Bruce was already out the door and not looking back.

As bad of an idea as it was, Bruce was proud of himself for the shocked and indignant look on Clark’s face.

\----

CLARK

He tried to figure out how it had come to be that he was showering in a guest bathroom in the Wayne manor, but he still wasn’t sure what had happened. As he toweled off, wrapping it around his waist, he tried to remember what he had said to make Bruce offer up his home. Then again, it wasn’t so much an offer as it was that he _demanded_ Clark stay the night.

As he walked out back into the bedroom, carrying his Superman suit in his hands, he stopped short, nearly stumbling. Bruce was standing by the mirror, clothing folded in his hands. All too quickly, Clark came to the realization that he had never been in a bedroom alone with Bruce before.

Maybe he was just old fashioned, and maybe he was a little too Midwestern sheltered from his childhood back on the farm, but the whole situation seemed a little _intimate_.

One look at Bruce’s face, eyes directly on the towel, and Clark blushed like a teenager. “Bruce!” he exclaimed, feeling incredibly awkward. He thought about trying to cover up, but thought of how that would make him look even more like a complete moron, and didn’t.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Bruce said. His voice sounded like it was catching on something in his throat, and Clark instantly felt guilty.

“No, uh, my bad.”

Bruce cleared his throat, face unreadable, and held out the pile. “I remembered you didn’t have anything but the Superman suit, and figured these would be more comfortable.”

“Yeah, thanks, they will be. It might just be habit, but I much prefer sleeping out of the suit.”

Bruce looked away, toward the window. Maybe Clark wasn’t the only one feeling uncomfortable. He tossed the fresh clothes and the suit onto the bed and put his hands on his hips. Bruce turned back, and Clark could have sworn his eyes crossed over his chest for a split second. Obviously, he was more tired than he thought.

Another moment of not saying anything, and Clark figured Bruce wasn’t planning on being the next one to speak. Which, Clark decided, was hardly fair considering he had been the on to force this whole situation in the first place.

“You know, I can be out of here before breakfast. I don’t want to put Alfred to too much trouble.”

Bruce raised a brow at him, and Clark tightened his grip on his own hips to an almost painful degree. The look was so _Bruce_ it was hard to see and just stand there like a dolt.

“You look half asleep already, and you think you’ll wake up earlier?”

Clark conceded that much. “Your showers are phenomenal. Seriously. That massage dial on the spout? I almost passed out right there.”

“Glad you liked it. You know they aren’t rare, those shower heads. Probably the least expensive thing in this entire house aside from paper.”

Clark’s eyes went a little wide, he thought it was just another extravagant, rich people item. “Really?”

Bruce looked skeptical. “Have you never been shopping for something like that?”

Clark shrugged. “My place came furnished, and anything else Lois or Ma pick out. Are you saying _you_ do household shopping?”

Bruce rolled his eyes, and almost grinned. Clark could tell he was holding back, and wished he wouldn’t. “No, but I generally make it a point to know where my money is going.” Bruce paused for a moment, opening his mouth and then closing it. “But you’re dead on your feet, get to bed.”

Clark _was_ struggling to keep his eyes open now that he mentioned it. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Admitting I’m right? If you were this tired at League meetings, my life would run a lot smoother.”

Clark mumbled a response not even he understood, stumbling over to the bed without getting changed. The covers had already been turned down, Bruce must have done that without his noticing. However, Clark couldn’t think too much on that, as tired as he was.

The covers were suddenly up to his shoulders, but his eyes were closing. Bruce must have done that too. Was exhaustion all it took for Bruce to be kind?

He knew Bruce was in the room, walking out, and he hadn’t felt this comfortable in weeks. It wasn’t just because the bed was heavenly, but, _Rao_ , it was. He wished he could decipher the words Bruce was saying now, but sleep was over taking him. Clark tried to say goodnight, but he didn’t know if that was what left his mouth. He didn’t really care much, either.

 ----

BRUCE

Clark was lost to the world by the time Bruce turned off the lights and reached the door. He’d known the man was tired, but hadn’t thought the situation _that_ bad. It was enough to quiet the doubts raging in his head about what a terrible decision this had been. If it brought Clark peace, it was worth it.

He chanced one last look, because why the hell not at this far down in his fall. Clark was lying on his stomach, exactly the way he had slumped onto the bed. Mouth open, already beginning to drool on the pillow, Bruce should have been put off by the sight. Should have, but he wasn’t. Not by half.

With a sigh, Bruce shut the door and stared down the hall to the basement, and then back down into the cave.

He hadn’t lied earlier, he was going to make damn sure Clark slept through the night, even if he had to stay up for most of it in order to do so. In any case, he told himself he had plenty of cases to work on, ones that needed his attention sooner rather than later. Plus there were still tests to run on his latest antidote to Scarecrow’s fear toxin. The stuff was always changing, improving and evolving, so he had to be prepared for any eventuality.

Alfred hadn’t questioned him about Clark yet, and Bruce was grateful for it. There was no denying it was a bad decision where his plan at distancing himself was concerned. Then again, it had been weeks of trying that route, and not even literal lightyears of distance had been able enough to keep Clark off his mind.

Maybe he was doomed from the start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The underlying plot of this work (and series as a whole) is slowly working it's way to the surface, I promise.  
> Thank you for the Kudos!!


	3. Extreme Difficulty In Expressing Concern

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of hand wave-y science incoming! But trust me, I've read weirder from DC themselves. This isn't really much of a stretch for Bats and Supes with all the completely cannon plot points they've had.

CLARK

Clark startled awake so fast, he flung the entire bedspread across the room without meaning to. Luckily the mirror was secured to the wall, or he would have had to think up a way to hide a giant, broken mirror. His panic quickly subsided as he remembered that he was in Wayne manor. Usually he didn’t sleep hard enough to wake up so disoriented, but he supposed after a long week with less than five hours total sleep, he had it coming.

There was a quick knock at his door, and he scrambled to cover himself in case the person came it. He’d kicked off the towel in his sleep, and couldn’t find the clothes Bruce had brought to him last night. Naturally.

“Uh, one moment,” he called out. _Please, let it not be Bruce_. Or Tim. Neither of them would let him live it down if they caught him naked in bed with all the sheets, blankets, and pillows strung across the bedroom floor.

“Good morning, Master Clark,” came Alfred’s calm tone through the door. Clark sighed with relief. “Breakfast is in five minutes, if you’re hungry.”

Meaning, Clark had better get downstairs in five minutes or face Alfred’s quiet wrath. He wholeheartedly believed Dick when he had said the butler could be deadly. No butler of a man like Bruce, of Gotham’s dark vigilante, could be entirely as passive as he seemed to be.

“Thank you, Alfred, I’ll be right there,” he answered, holding up the rumpled clothes in triumph.

\----

Despite knowing Bruce wasn’t going to be there, Clark was slightly disappointed to see his usual spot at the table empty. Clark had eaten with them a few times before, and each time Bruce had a specific spot, they all did. It reminded Clark of life back home on the farm, and made him smile.

“You don’t look half as bad as Dick made it sound,” came Tim’s complement from his perch on top of the counter.

“Master Drake,” Alfred scolded, or at least it was scolding as far as Alfred went. His tone was only slightly different from the usual.

Tim grinned, hopping off with ease. “Sorry, Alfred.”

“I didn’t realize I was such a hot topic for conversation,” Clark deadpanned.

“You’re literally Superman,” Tim said, mimicking the same deadpan tone Clark used. “Sleep well, then?” he asked, joining Clark at the table and digging into the food that Alfred laid out with fervor. Clark had almost forgotten how much food a fifteen year old boy could fit into his stomach at once, but Tim was already challenging that mark.

“What is it with you people and your concern for my sleeping habits?”

Tim’s surprised laugh came out in a rush under his breath, but Alfred cut him off before he could say anything.

“Juice, Master Clark?”

“Oh, thank you, Alfred,” Clark agreed with a smile, not missing the careful look the butler shot Tim as he turned back. What was that about, Clark wondered?

Clark heard Dick’s footsteps running up from the cave, mixed with the rapid pace of his heart beat, before anyone else noticed a thing. He was on his feet a second before the kitchen door burst open.

“Alfred!” Dick exclaimed. “Where’s Bruce?”

Tim was at attention from the moment Clark rose, but relaxed a fraction when he saw it was only Dick. Though his face was still set in a firm mask, ready to jump into action if necessary. Dick was in full Nightwing costume, looking more than a little out of place in the bright, sunny kitchen.

“Master Bruce is on a flight to Chicago. I’m afraid he is past the point of turning back,” Alfred answered swiftly, and Dick finally turned to face Clark with more than a little shock.

“Clark? You’re here for breakfast?” He asked, just a little breathless. He and Tim shared a quick glance that Clark didn’t understand. It wasn’t possible that Clark had missed something, was it?

“What happened?” Clark redirected, stepping forward with his arms crossed, readying himself for bad news.

Dick must have been able to read the worry in his expression, because he shook his head quickly. “It’s not like that. Not yet, anyway.”

Tim wasn’t patient enough to wait for a long winded explanation. “Grayson! What is it?”

“It’s the Man of Steel case. Oracle and I finally have a lead.”

“From where?” Clark asked seriously, staying calm in the face of Dick’s exhilaration. His heart rate was still thought the roof.

“The murderer wasn’t working on their own. There’ve been whispers in the underground, talk among the gangs, someone’s recruiting. They’re looking for people with a reason to hate Superman – to hate you.”

That wasn’t too shocking, but Clark still didn’t feel much better for knowing. “We suspected it could be something like that. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why the rush? The information doesn’t seem that dire.”

Tim scoffed. “You obviously don’t know Bruce that well. He’d say Dick was too slow in bringing him the news.”

“I can see that,” Clark conceded. “Then why didn’t you just use the comms to get in touch with Bruce? Or Oracle?”

Dick eyes were wild, and there were the beginnings of a manic grin forming on his lips. “We found out where the next session is going to be, and when. Ten o’clock on the dot this morning.”

“That fifteen minutes from now!” Tim exclaimed, running at full speed toward the cave.

“Alfred, thank you for the meal,” Clark said quickly, then sped up to his room with Nightwing following close behind him. “You’ll have to tell Bruce as soon as possible,” Clark commented as he quick changed into the suit.

Dick’s eyebrow went up, challenging. “Think I don’t know that? Oracle’s sending him an encrypted message as we speak.” The two raced down to the cave through one of Bruce's many secret entrances, Clark keeping pace with Dick as they went.

“You still haven't answered about the comms,” Clark reminded him, already moving towards where Tim was waiting, fully geared and ready to move.

“We have reason to be worried about the links. Oracle’s working on that, too, don’t worry.”

“Anything you care to share?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

He sounded so much like Bruce in that moment that Clark had to laugh. Dick rolled his eyes. Clark knew he hated the comparison, but sometimes he just couldn’t help it. “We’ll get there faster with me than on your bike,” Clark told them logically, knowing Dick would be less than thrilled with that idea as well. He and Bruce never quite appreciated being carried through the air by Superman. Tim had no such reservations.

“Hell yes!” Tim exclaimed, his excited grin enough to made Clark smirk, too.

“Suppose there’s no denying that,” Dick grumbled.

Carrying both the boys, Superman lifted off into the sky, making his way to the outskirts of Old Gotham. One thing was certain; Batman was going to _kill_ him for this.

\----

BRUCE

“THEY WHAT?” Bruce shouted into the phone, belatedly remembering he was in a public restroom in the building belonging to a very important Wayne Enterprises client, with a very large staff who undoubtedly would have heard the outburst. Somehow, he didn’t seem care.

“They have gone for an outing with Master Kent,” Alfred repeated, coding his words for reasons Bruce didn’t understand. “Master Grayson would have called to inform you himself, but his device is unreliable at the moment.”

So the comms weren’t to be trusted. That didn’t sit well with Bruce, as they were mostly his own design. He scowled at his reflection in the mirror, thankful he had taken the time to lock the door before answering. The last thing he needed was some nosy intern barging in. “And how long until he can acquire a new one?” Bruce practically spat into the phone.

“I believe _she_ will be sending you a bill shortly, sir.” _She_ being Oracle, Bruce understood.

“Thank her for me when you can, Alfred. I’ll be cutting this meeting short, due to a problem with my ward that needs my immediate attention.”

“I do not think that necessary, sir. I believe it can be dealt with upon your scheduled return.”

Not a chance in hell. “Arrange the next flight, Alfred. My _private_ plane.” His Batwing could cover the distance easily, and with Alfred piloting it remotely, even faster.

There was the briefest of pauses, enough to tell him Alfred disagreed. “As you wish, Master Wayne.” And the call was over.

Bruce was practically seething. Not only was Dick taking Tim in without a plan, without _him,_ in the middle of the day, but Clark was going with them. The last thing he needed was Superman flying around Gotham, making the streets more agitated and restless than they needed to be. He’d be having words with every single one of them when he was back in the city. Many words.

At that moment, an email popped up on his phone. One look, however, told him it wasn’t an email at all. It was a message from Oracle, using a code which he had memorized the cipher to weeks ago. Moments like this were what all the “unnecessary” and “paranoid” planning were built for.

The contents of the update made his stomach harden, despite the brevity of it.

It explained a lucky lead in the Man of Steel case, but it was all too easy, too sudden, and something wasn’t right. Leads like that were not simply happened upon by accident. Dick knew that, he was smart, and he was certainly trained better than that. The threat of possible hostages and the unhelpful presence of Superman had obviously pushed him into action too soon. But Bruce was miles and miles from Gotham, too far away to stop them now.

\---

Some days, Bruce hated constantly being right.

Like today, as he raced in the Batmobile to a warehouse in the absolute worst of the worst parts of Old Gotham even in the daylight. Maybe _especially_ in the daylight, when all guard was down with the pretense of transparency.

Bruce knew he was right the instant he pulled to a stop, got out, and heard the absolute silence surrounding the vicinity. He knew from the moment he pulled his scanner and found the inside of the building partially lined with lead. And he definitely knew from the second he heard an explosion go off from somewhere inside.

As much as he believed in his boys, nothing would ever get rid of the bone chilling fear that followed every time they did something as stupid as running in blind. With Clark on their side, impulse incarnate, he had no doubt that was _exactly_ what they had done.

A scream worthy of an earthquake wracked the building, and a heavy piece of machinery went flying through the wall just beside his head, as Batman ran though the broken corridors toward the source of the explosion. The thugs he took out on the way were nothing, he barely registered them. One by one, they went down easily, and he powered through in time to reach an overhang overlooking the lower main area of the warehouse. Massive, metal shipping containers ranging from 20 to 40 feet in length were set up throughout, some stacked high and few crushed. That must have been Clark’s doing.

He sent out a Batarang, knocking the gun out of the hand of one of the thugs on Dick’s tail. Nightwing was jumping from crate to crate, trying to take out as many as he could while making a beeline for the north end. Why, Bruce couldn’t tell.

As he studied the assailants, trying to discern what gang they were with, he noticed they never once stopped coming after Nightwing. Even knocked down, they began crawling forward with unnatural determination. Mind control? Hypnosis? His brain worked through possible causes even as his eyes tracked his boys though the room.

“Robin, Evasion!” Nightwing shouted, calling out a battle pattern Bruce had taught Tim over a year ago, and Dick years before that. That was good. It meant they were fine. He scanned the room for Clark, and was surprised when he couldn’t pick him out.

“Avoid the containers!” Robin shouted up, evidently noticing Batman’s appearance. Noting the container that now more resembled a charred crater, Batman didn’t need much time to figure out where the explosion had come from.

All of a sudden, the Flash was beside him. _Perfect_. The Justice League had arrived. If Clark alone wasn’t enough to set off a chain reaction, this certain would do the trick. “Did you send out the call?” Barry rushed. “Diana wasn’t sure because you didn’t-”

He didn’t get to finish his thought, as one of the container doors blasted open following another explosion from the front of the building. It let loose a horde of metal robots from within. One by one the containers popped open, more and more metal men beginning to fill the room.

“Don’t hit them!” Nightwing yelled, too late.

Hawkgirl, flying through from the hole in the ceiling, had sent her mace smashing into the head of one of the ones jumping to reach her. The thing seemed to keep moving for a moment, then combusted in an explosion of green shards and dust. They all recognized what it was immediately.

Shayera was on her comm link in the next second. “Supergirl, stay back. The building is filled with K-bombs.”

“ _Shit._ ” Flash breathed. “How many are there?”

Bruce’s lips were a hard line. “If every crate is filled with them? Thousands.”

“And here I was, hoping for hundreds,” Barry muttered. “Round up?”

“Break left,” Batman agreed, and Barry took off.

“Batman, plan of attack?” Hawkgirl asked.

So far, the robots were only scrambling. “Make sure none of them leave the building. Get me an aerial view, see if you can spot Superman from outside.”

“Superman is missing?” came Diana’s voice through the link. Wonder Woman had arrived.

“Out of sight as of now. What’s your ETA? We may need that lasso.” A second explosion rocketed through the chaos, but none of those in his line of sight had time to deal with it.

“Holy Hera!” she exclaimed at the noise. “I’m here. North side of the warehouse.”

“Manhunter, Containment Protocol 7!” Batman shouted over the link, mind racing as he tried to position the League in the best way in order to keep the robots contained. They had begun an active attack, but every severed limb let out more of the toxic mineral. This trap was built for Superman, there was no doubt in his mind of that.

 _On your order, Batman,_ J’onn said, his voice carrying thought their mental connection.

“Stop!” Diana cried at the same time as she knocked aside a wild thug with the hilt of her sword.

Batman was darting above the mass of metal, moving on top of the containers as Dick had, as fast as he could in his effort to get to her. Beating back the robots seemed impossible without breaking them, but Barry was managing from the other side. It was the ones still exiting the containers that threatened to overwhelm them, and the ones breaking out of the warehouse.

“No force field!” she continued, drawing his focus back. “Superman is down.”

\----

CLARK

Everything had started out so well. For a moment, Clark actually thought they could finish this without need for Bruce to completely fly off the handle. Then, because he was never that lucky, the situation went south faster than a speeding bullet, and there was no time for regret. He’d sent out a signal to the League, but he hadn’t expected such a fast response time.

He had heard Batman enter the building right after the initial explosion after the hostages had been cleared, and Nightwing and Robin had started running, heading back towards him at the same time – Rao knew why. They were shouting about not touching the robots, apparently filled with Kryptonite, but it wasn’t quite that simple when the said robots were doing everything they could to overwhelm him

Superman could see there was something obviously wrong with the thugs he was taking down, too, but the moment he tried to question them they went rabid. It was as if the questions triggered a self-destruction of their mental state.

Suddenly Tim was by his side, shouting questions, and Superman was giving orders, and Nightwing was taking the high ground. And then time appeared to freeze.

He heard the last tumbler tick of a bomb about to blow. It came from the north, less than ten feet from where Tim stood attempting to beat the bots back with his staff, without breaking them open. His human ears couldn’t possibly have heard the sound. It would have been too late, had he been beside anyone but Superman.

Clark was on Tim in a second, shielding him from the blast and the scorching heat, encasing him with his own body, ribs splayed out as far as they could possibly go to protect him. Robin was ok. _Tim_ was ok. He almost didn’t feel the burning sensation enveloping him in his the midst of that relief.

Then Clark’s lungs _contracted_ and he heard an agonizing shout, belatedly realizing the sound was coming from his own mouth. It was all he could do to keep his weight off of Tim and stop himself from crumbling to the ground.

“GO,” Clark breathed, the sound hissing out angrily, making his entire body explode with pain. _Kryptonite_. The bomb had been made of Kryptonite.

The containers he hadn’t been able to see through before were bursting open around him, flooding the room with metal men and Clark knew. He knew as he crawled, trying to stand, that it was Luthor’s work. It was always Luthor. The trap, the hostages, and all in broad daylight. He didn’t doubt this would be hard to pin on him, like everything else he had ever done.

One of the robots came toward him, shooting some kind of laser weapon, and Superman hurled it away, flinging the machine in a high arch. He yelled, pain wracking through his upper body and left leg with the motion. There were fragments embedded there, he realized too late. When the robot hit the ground, it erupted into more of the green death.

He’d forgotten about that small detail.

Someone was shouting for Superman. Nightwing. It didn’t matter, Clark couldn’t respond, his entire body convulsed violently and he fell, cracking the cement floor with the force of his fists.

Diana. She was by his side, now.

He had to tell her.

“Ro…” Robin was hit! Just three words was all he needed. _Why won’t the words come_?

She was shouting at someone far away, and he _tried_ to tell her but the pain stopped the sound in his throat. He couldn’t move his lips. The Kryptonite was moving in his blood stream, now. She was saying something. Something.

A red blur.

Then nothing.

\----

BRUCE         

“Batman, it’s happening all over Gotham,” Oracle informed him through his comm link over an hour later. “Saying it’s a gas leak, quarantining districts. CDC has been called in to investigate, and they’re demanding a report from the League.”

“They’ll get it. Call in Huntress, tell her she’s needed when the sun sets.”

“Done and done,” Oracle answered, signing off.

The robots had begun a siege, one the League was only just beginning to contain. Supergirl had been sent to the Watchtower to monitor the situation with J’onn on a global scale, but so far it was only Gotham affected.

That meant someone had staged an attack on _his_ city in order to get to _his_ friend. This was personal.

What was worse, the whole situation made it necessary for members of the League to be active in Gotham. He’d be dealing with the fallout of _that_ disaster long after the Kryptonite was cleared out. Colorful suits always seemed to rile up the villains in Gotham.

Flash had run Superman out of the city on Batman’s order, and the loss of the speedster cost them time, but it was the only way to get the alien out of direct contact with the stuff. _Idiot._

When Rayner had finally arrived shortly after, things were able to move more quickly. Sometimes, the Lanterns weren’t entirely useless.

Nightwing filled him in quickly on how the supposed recon mission had turned into an ambush. There were hostages, and Superman had acted. _Idiot_.

“B. It looks like that’s the last of them,” Flash beeped in.

“J’onn, beam the remnants of the bots to the Tower lab. Lantern, take the ones still powered on. Nightwing, Robin, go with the GCPD to Arkham with the human criminals. Everyone else, out.”

“Well gee, you’re welcome Bats, nice to see you as always,” Flash snarked.

“Thank you,” Batman growled over the comm, then set to work analyzing the half-destroyed warehouse. The building had all but collapsed when the robots started breaking down the walls. The first explosion had come from the top of the stage, and the second below that connected by wires running under a boarded section of the floor.

The hostages Superman had extracted were fine, aside from the emotional trauma they no doubt were suffering from. That wasn’t a new thing for the people of Gotham, though. These people had seen more than enough to make them strong, resilient. But that meant the criminals were the same.

Unfortunately, it was still daylight, and so most of their work would have to be done later that night. He would end up regretting how little sleep he’d gotten last night, but that was a problem for later.

Ripping Clark a new one, that was for later too.

As if Bruce didn’t have enough things to work through at that moment, Nightwing connected. “Batman. We have a situation. Taking Robin back to the cave.”

“Report,” he ordered.

“He was hit by a shard of the K when the second explosion went off. Superman took the brunt of it, but even he couldn’t block everything with so little reaction time.”

“Is he walking?”

“…Essentially.”

“Then take him to the cave and head back out. I’ll deal with him later.” With that, he clicked the device off. Someone was going to bleed by the time Batman was finished.

\----

Clark was set up in Metropolis General, under the strict watch of Doctor Leslie Thompkins. Flying her out had been easy and, as Dr. Palmer was working in the Tower on the robots, she was one of the only people Bruce trusted to work on Superman.

Bruce had seen to Tim in the cave, finding the boy removing a sizable piece of K that had gotten lodged in his leg on his own, without a numbing agent. Bruce had given him an earful for that, too, after lecturing him about protocols for longer than either of them really needed. Then Bruce had left Tim to get to work with his own anger barely under wraps. He was proud of the way Robin had handled himself after the plan had spiraled, but not even that was enough to ease his fear.

Tim was not his son, but he might as well have been for all Bruce cared for him.

And now, he was on his way to the hospital, to take the rest of it out on Clark.

And to see him, to make sure he was alright. Oracle would have called if anything had gone wrong in recovery, but that didn’t matter. Bruce needed to see for himself.

\----

CLARK

Clark woke to a pair of hard, green eyes inspecting him. He let out a shallow breath, seeing it was only Leslie Thompkins. He was in a hospital bed, in a room obviously chosen for its privacy.

“How bad is it, doc?” Clark squeezed out, then cleared his throat. _Ouch._ Mistake.

She nodded to herself, eyes on the needle in his vein. It must have been one of the Kryptonite needles Bruce had made, or otherwise he was worse off than he thought. She seemed to know where his mind was heading.

“Yes, they’re his. The concentration seems to be low enough that it’s not affecting recovery, but I’ll take it out shortly just in case. As for how bad it is, I’d say you’re lucky you’re Superman. Your back was torn open from the blast. We siphoned out as much of the K from your bloodstream as possible, but it’s not perfect. Oh, and you’ll be wanting to replace that suit.”

Clark grunted in pain as he tried to shift on the hospital bed. “Is it just two ribs, or am I miscounting?”

Leslie tapped a clipboard. “Two ribs and both shoulder blades were blasted with Kryptonite. That’s not accounting for the fragments we found embedded in muscle. If I had to make a prediction, I’d say moving is going to be a little difficult for the next few days, but I am not entirely familiar with how your biology will handle the amount of Kryptonite it was exposed to.”

She pulled out a pen, jotting a few quick notes down. Clark closed his eyes. His vision was off, and at the moment his strength felt zapped. He doubted he could even lift the little bed.

“Were you covering something when it happened?” She questioned, catching him off guard.

Clark frowned. “Yes, Robin, is he here, too?”

Leslie let out a frustrated sigh. “As usual, they have all decided that they are fully capable of patching themselves up on their _own_ , though God knows he should have been to see me. However, that does explain the extent of the damage. It would have been less had your back not been extended and so exposed.”

She walked around to where Clark assumed his x-rays were hung, but couldn’t crane his neck far enough around to see them for himself. “Now, your bleeding may have stopped, but that in no way means you’re fit for active duty.”

“You won’t have to worry about him getting back into the fray, Dr. Thompkins.”

Clark’s head instinctively whipped around towards the gruff voice, causing a serious head-rush, but he sat up despite it as Batman, cowl and all, entered the room. “Don’t get up on my account,” Batman remarked coldly, hardly glancing at Clark.

“How is Robin?” Clark pressed. He’d seen Tim’s cape as he grappled up to the overhang, but nothing more.

Batman didn’t answer, instead going over to whisper a conversation with Leslie. With his powers on hiatus and the blood pounding in his ears, Clark couldn’t tell much of what they were saying. He did make out a few key words revolving round Superman being suspended from duty until he was at full health. _That_ wasn’t going to happen. He just needed a few minutes to get his bearings, but he could let Bruce think he’d stay put for the time being.

Leslie moved quickly to exit, but turned back to point at Clark before she left, saying “No flying.”

As soon as they were alone, Clark felt the icy glare from the dark cowl baring down on him. Instead of being the one to start the argument he could already see burning in Bruce’s eyes, Clark set to taking out the needle.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Batman was using the same voice he used for questioning criminals and Clark sighed.

He tried for the practical approach. “You and I both know I can’t just sit here.”

“Funny. I don’t think I do know that. I _think_ you just got yourself blown up by being careless.”

“Don’t even try to tell me that you would just stay in bed like this, not with an ongoing investigation and especially not after the showdown we just had,” Clark argued.

“This isn’t about me, but if it was, I also wouldn’t have ran into a situation that was so blatantly a _trap_ , dragging Nightwing and Robin down with me.”

Clark pursed his lips into a thin line. “You weren’t there, Batman.”

“Exactly. It’s my city and you went in without consulting me. We have an agreement, Superman.” Clark wanted to flinch at Bruce’s avoidance of his first name, but he was too annoyed, and too worn, to be patient. “Keep out of Gotham.”

Clark was incredulous. “Are you kidding me?”

Bruce seemed to check himself, but barely. He amended, “It’s filled with Kryptonite right now. Someone was setting it off all over the city. Evidently to ensure you stay out of it.”

“Is this your way of keeping me out of the case? The case _directly_ involving me?”

“No. This is me protecting my city. Don’t be arrogant.” Bruce’s newfound calm only worked to set off Clark’s temper.

“You’re the one coming in here just to lecture me for doing my job!” Clark argued, fuming now. No one but Bruce was ever able to rile him up so fast - the man got to him like no other.

“You’re off duty,” Batman stated, the order clear in his voice and in the set of his shoulders. “End of discussion.”

“ _Discussion_? This is what you call a discussion?” Clark had had enough. He slid off the bed, ignoring the way his body shuddered, and definitely the way Bruce seemed to inch forward as if prepared to catch him. Damn him for being endearing when Clark was angry. “A discussion involves listening.”

“So listen. The League voted.”

“Without me there?”

Bruce stepped forward now, his scowl out in full force. “You were otherwise occupied, getting the only substance that kills you removed from your bloodstream piece by piece.”

Clark remembered bits and pieces of the operation, vague images flittering back to him with every passing moment. It was mostly the pain he remembered, as numbing drugs didn’t work on him.

Clark wasn’t backing down, instead he puffed out his chest even as he felt his knees wobble with the effort. “I’m not dead yet.”

“You will be if you don’t get your act together, Superman,” Bruce insisted, like it was final. Clark pursed his lips, stepping forward again only to actually stumble this time. Bruce was at his side, holding him up. “Is this your version of _fine_?”

He had a response. Really, he did. It was a good one, too, but the moment he locked eyes with Bruce, he paused and that was more than enough time for Bruce to keep going. Yet the harshness had all but left his voice when he said, “You’re out, Clark.”

“I don’t need a nanny, Bruce,” Clark mumbled, his voice gruff as he took on his own weight again.

Whatever emotion had flashed briefly in Bruce’s eyes was gone at his words, replaced by the familiar cold steel. “Noted.”

With that, Bruce made sure Clark could stand, and then he was gone from the room without another word.

Clark cursed, kicking the bed and cursing again when it hurt. He was _fine._ He had taken worse hits than this and come back swinging every time. Bruce had no right to sideline him from an investigation like this, Kryptonite or no Kryptonite.

If their roles had been reversed, Clark would have done everything he could to keep Bruce in the loop. Obviously the feeling was not mutual.

Bruce had no right to act as if Clark had hurt him by arguing, either. That was absurd. The cold shutdown Bruce had just thrown at Clark – as if Clark should have backed down and apologized and begged for forgiveness – that was what was out of line. It didn’t make sense, but yet it was so like Bruce to shut him out that maybe the only one not making sense was Clark himself.

Clark rubbed at his face, but it didn’t help ease the tension.

The TV buzzed incessantly in the background loud enough to be too loud for the silence that followed Bruce’s exit, with or without his super-hearing. He grumbled, looking around for the remote.

On the screen was a news caster relaying more important, breaking news. Clark assumed it was just about the Gotham incident, until the words Lois Lane popped up in the tagline. Clark switched up the volume.

“ _The Daily Planet reporter landed in Salvador, Brazil late last night, and was last seen being escorted away from the city in an unmarked car, eyewitnesses say, and failed to check into her hotel. Ransom demands have already come in, says our source who wishes to remain anonymous_ …”

Clark didn’t hear the end of it. He was on autopilot, running as fast as his wounded legs would carry him without the ease of his super-speed through the hospital. The back of his suit was practically nonexistent where the Dr. Thompkins had cut it away, and his cape was still back at the manor, but he hardly registered the breeze.

He hadn’t even known Lois was leaving the country, and wasn’t that a kicker. If he hadn’t have gotten himself blown up, as Bruce described it, Clark might not have even known she was in danger. They hadn’t been talking.

After a few pitiful attempts to get off the ground, he began hovering just above the city, and it nearly killed him to push himself to go faster. But he did.

 _Lois_.

He had to get to Lois.

\----

Flying out across the Gulf was harder than usual, so hard he was sweating more than he had in the past twenty years combined, but he made it.

There was a guard pointing a gun at him from on top of the ship carrying drugs, guns, and Lois. He dodged the bullet, knocked the gun away, and hit the man over the head, knocking him out with a sharp _whack_. Maybe he had used a little more force than was necessary, but this guy had taken Lois, and that was as good as asking for it as far as Clark was concerned. There were more men still below decks, but they hadn’t been alerted yet.

“Lois!” he called down as quiet as possible, trying to pretend he wasn’t actually a little breathless. He pushed the pain to the back of his mind, forcing his feet to jump over the railing.

She was gagged, but so, so alive, on the deck of the ship. Her eyes went wide when she saw him land, and he saw the hint of tears she stubbornly refused to let fall. Her hands came up, ripping the cloth away.

“Superman!” she whispered. _Of course_ she had freed herself, he shouldn’t have expected anything else. “My feet,” she gestured. There were heavy zip ties there, ones she hadn’t been able to cut thought without it being entirely obvious.

In two seconds, her feet were free and he helped her to her feet. “Are you the only one they took?”

She nodded, eyes hard and determined. “Yes.”

That was all he needed to know. He swept up her into his arms, taking off with a jump that rocked the boat hard enough to set it off course. There were shouts and gunfire as the men reacted, but the bullets bounced off his back harmlessly, if a bit painful (very painful, but he couldn’t really complain), against the healing wounds of the Kryptonite.

Clark was thankful for the excuse of keeping her comfortable, as it meant he could fly a bit slower on the way back. She was far from heavy, but weight was weight and it didn’t do anything pleasant for his aching muscles.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, the relief he had initially felt at seeing her fading into worry.

Lois looked up to give him a small smile. She was scared, but that was as much as she was ever going to show it. He’d missed seeing that sheer power of determination up close. “A few scrapes, and I broke a nail. Think I can avoid a trip to the ER?”

“I don’t know Lo, a broken nail, that sounds serious. We may need to operate immediately. Right here.”

It worked, she laughed, and Clark grinned at the sound. “Because you’re such a manicure pro?”

Clark scoffed, being careful to keep Lois tucked safely in his arms. “I don’t know what you mean. I hear abstract art is all the rage with the hip young people.”

The truth was that he’d failed miserably the one time he’d tried to do Lois’ nails. More of the polish had ended up on her hands and the couch than any of her actual nails. It looked as if a four year old had done it. Maybe a blind-folded four year old.

“Whatever you say, Smallville.”

Clark smiled. It was the first time she had called him the nickname since their break-up, and it didn’t hurt the way he thought it would. There was a lull in conversation as they flew over the Gulf, but he could tell there was something she wanted to say. Trouble was, Clark didn’t know what he wanted it to be.

“Clark…”

“Yes, Lois?”

“You stink.”

Clark snorted. “You always know how to make a guy feel appreciated.” Though it was absolutely true, he could smell himself even with the wind and the stench was _awful_.

“That wasn’t what I meant to say,” she backtracked. She was quiet for a moment, and Clark couldn’t help but feel anxious with every second of silence. “I’ve missed talking to you.”

His heart clenched painfully, and he wasn’t sure if it was still the Kryptonite running its course or something else. “So have I,” he admitted softly, as if he were afraid to say the words.

“I wish we could go back to being…social.”

Clark chucked despite himself. That was probably the most awkward thing to ever come out of Lois Lane’s mouth, and it was all because she was trying to spare his feelings.

“I think the word you’re looking for is friendly,” he suggested.

She was quiet, and although he couldn’t see her face, he would bet she was chewing on her lip. That was one of the first things he remembered noticing about her – the way she fidgeted when she was contemplating something difficult. “I didn’t want to make it sound as terrible as I feel for saying it.”

“I think ‘social’ is actually worse.”

“Got it.”

“Lois…I do, too…”

“But it’s still weird,” she finished.

“ _Weird_ is one word for it.”

“Do you think we can?” she wondered. “Eventually?”

“I hope so. I really, really hope so. It’ll just…”

“Take some time.”

They were closing in on Metropolis now, and Clark almost wished they weren’t. In the sky, it felt as if they still had time to just be the old Lois and Clark. He was afraid that when they touched down, the awkwardness and loss would settle back in and they would be back to uncomfortable glances and forced conversations in the bullpen.

“Ron asked me out for drinks,” Lois blurted.

That was not what he was expecting.

Clark opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again only for the words to get stuck in his throat. He managed eventually, “Our Ron?”

Lois nodded against his chest.

Well.

“You should say yes,” Clark told her softly, honestly. He surprised himself more than anything else, but once the words were out he knew that he meant them. Ron was a good man. Smart. Confident. Lois deserved to…to date someone like Ron.

Lois didn’t speak until they finally reached her family’s house in the suburbs. When she stood, she didn’t move away from him to a safe, platonic distance like he expected her to. Instead she reached up, cupping his cheek with her hand. Clark leaned into the touch. It was familiar, and he hadn’t realized how much he had missed being touched like that, though it was entirely platonic.

Most of the Justice League didn’t do hugs, certainly nothing beyond a clap to the back, and they were even less sentimental when it came to regular signs of affection. That just wasn’t Clark’s nature, and for the past few weeks he had felt so distant from the rest of the world, he just hadn’t realized why. But Lois grounded him, she always had.

“You deserve happiness, Clark. I mean it.”

“Some days I just don’t think that’s a part of my destiny, Lois.”

She smiled sadly, and drew her hand away to hug him close. “Don’t be so pessimistic, Smallville. It doesn’t look good on you.”

With that, she stepped back, taking a deep breath that Clark mirrored. “Whatever you say, boss,” he teased, trying his best to fake a grin. Lois pretended she couldn’t tell the difference.

“Thanks again for the daring rescue, Superman.” She didn’t ask about the destroyed suit, and he was glad.

“You stay safe, Ms. Lane.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter titles are a part of the whole "Telltale Signs" shtick, if you were wondering why the grammar looks so funky.  
> Your comments feed my soul, thank you guys so much!


	4. Would Rather Make Assumptions Than Have a Conversation

BRUCE

Bruce heard the boys talking hurriedly by the monitor as soon as he entered the cave.

“He’s going to burst a blood vessel,” Tim said, and Bruce could practically hear the smile in his voice. It didn’t take the World’s Greatest Detective to figure out they were talking about him.

“If we’re lucky,” Dick hedged. “You’re telling him.”

“Me?!”

“You _are_ Robin. It’s your job.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be independent or something, now? You do it!”

“ _Both_ of you are acting like children,” Bruce interrupted, secretly enjoying the surprised looks on their faces. It appeared he wasn't too old to get the drop on them, after all. “What don’t you want me to know?” They looked at each other. Neither made any move to speak. “Now,” Batman growled, his impatience warring alongside his curiosity.

Tim was first to break. “Apparently, Superman just rescued Lois Lane from an interview gone wrong off the Brazilian coast of South America.”

His jaw ticked. _Dammit, Clark_. “When?”

“It’s all over the news,” Dick explained, arms crossed as he leaned against the desk below the monitors. “According to the reporters, he was seen personally taking her home and everything with the suit half ripped to shreds. You can imagine how the tabloids are already foaming at the mouth over _that_.”

Oh, yes, he certainly could. Had they reconciled? Had Lois come to her senses and realized what she had thrown away by leaving Clark? No - Bruce forced his buzzing thoughts to a halt, reminding himself that it didn’t matter. He shouldn’t care what Clark did with his personal life - it wasn’t Bruce’s problem and it most certainly wasn’t Batman’s.

Apparently, Bruce had been quiet a moment too long, as both the boys started looking nervous again. Tim was beginning to mirror Dick’s defensive stance.

“You know, maybe it’s been long enough? Maybe he’s healed up just fine?” Dick offered.

Bruce ignored that. “How is your leg?” he asked Tim, and Tim looked less than thrilled to be the next victim of Batman’s glare, but he straightened up nonetheless, standing tall.

“Good enough to go out tonight.”

Bruce nodded shortly. “Prove it. Sparing upstairs in five.”

 _Of course_ Clark hadn’t listened to him. Hadn’t Bruce seen that _look_ on his face as he left? The very same look he got whenever he had made up his unendingly stubborn mind about something. He _had_ seen it, but for some reason he had expected Clark to do the impossible, and listen to Bruce’s advice anyway.

And it had been advice. Mostly. Partially.

Maybe it was a bit more of an order. Or completely an order.

But Bruce was sure he had made it clear he was looking out for Clark’s best interests. The _team’s_ best interest, that is. Clark knew that.

\----

CLARK

It felt strange walking into his own apartment again after returning (on foot and out of sight) to the city. It was even stranger to feel so physically drained, though he supposed he had a valid excuse for that part. But now, flicking on the lights and walking through the quiet of the kitchen, he found himself missing the feeling of life in the manor.

Though, neither the apartment or Bruce’s manor quite felt like home – home for Clark was back in Kansas, on the farm with his mom. Yet there was still something to be said for the presence that other people added to a house. Just having other bodies, other personalities, in the same space changed the atmosphere one expected from a mansion as big and empty as Wayne Manor. Even though most of the manor looked like something out of a high society catalog, it still had a lived-in air alongside all the sterility and old money charm. Clark didn’t doubt that had less to do with Bruce himself, and everything to do with his wards.

Maybe Clark hadn’t noticed the emptiness of his own place in so long because he had had Lois with him. Even before they were officially together, she would come over to work on a story, edit drafts, or just to bounce ideas off of one another so often that she had practically become a part of the place at the same time she became a part of Clark.

But tonight, he felt a little lighter, emotionally speaking anyhow, and he decided that it was now or never. He’d have to open up the package.

Clark had been surprised when Lois mentioned Ron, that was undeniable, but he hadn’t felt the jealousy he expected to. He had thought about what he’d do the first time he saw her with another guy, what he’d say. None of those worst case scenarios had proven true. What he wanted was for Lois to be happy, because if she was happy, then all of this was worth it.

Taking a breath, he tore open the package. Inside the bag was just a ring. A simple, silver engagement ring with a brilliant diamond glittering from the delicate setting in the middle. There was an engraving of his and her initials on the inside. He sat on his bed, just staring at it.

Clark didn’t know what he was waiting to happen. It was just a ring. That was all. He waited some more, but there was no stabbing pain in his chest (though there _was_ the pain in his shoulders from carrying Lois so far with such limited powers, and the all-encompassing general pain of overexertion), or sudden flashback to the night he proposed. Nothing happened at all.

He laughed out loud for no reason in particular, maybe just to hear the sound of his own voice. He didn’t feel particularly good, but neither did his heart ache like it had.

That night, he was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, and the nightmares he had feared for so long managed to stay away.

\----

The next day, Clark felt like hell. Worse than hell. Every muscle that had been hit yesterday, which was most of them, was as sore and aching as if he were ten years old again and just coming into his powers. Then he remembered that it was Monday, and he had slept in a solid ten minutes past his alarm. Aching or not, he sped through his morning routine, cheating the traffic by flying to the rooftop of the Daily Planet, and running through the doors just in time to only be one minute behind schedule.

If he was a little sweaty, no one really noticed.

“Rough night, Smallville?” Lois teased, sipping coffee and grinning behind the mug.

“Wild as ever, Lois. I think I watched at least five different cooking shows in a row last night.”

“Just five? You’ll never make top spinster at that rate, Clark,” Cat Grant purred over the top of her cubicle. “Though from what I just witnessed, you may not need to aim so low.” She wriggled her eyebrows, letting them all know she knew something they didn’t.

Lois narrowed her eyes. “Spill, Cat. What gossip could you have possibly heard at this ungodly hour?”

Cat wagged her finger. “The rumor mill never rests, Lois. Not that it was even a rumor, no, I heard this straight from the lion’s mouth.”

“ _Cat_ ,” Lois pressed impatiently.

“Oh, you’re so grouchy in the morning,” Cat teased. She looked back up to Clark with a sultry wink. “A certain tall, dark, and handsome billionaire came in looking for our little farm boy right before eight. _Everyone_ knows the rich don’t get up before ten o’clock for just anything.”

Lois’ eyebrows flew up to her hair line, and she swiveled back in her chair to face Clark as he sat down at his own desk. She didn’t know about Bruce’s true identity, it was one of the few things Clark had never shared with her about his life as a hero. She sounded scandalized, and a little offended, as she exclaimed, “Bruce _Wayne_ came to see you? What for? You didn’t say you had an interview with him!”

That was probably because he didn’t have one.

Clark forced a convincing shrug, and the ladies waved him off, turning to discuss among themselves what Wayne could have wanted with Clark of all people. Clark, for his part, _really_ didn’t want to know what Bruce had come to say. The man owned the Planet, but hardly ever came in to visit unless it was a pretense to talk to shop with Superman. 

Clark had a pretty good idea what it was about, besides. He couldn’t come to Gotham because of the lingering Kryptonite, so Bruce had come to chew him out about flying to South America to save Lois in Metropolis. It was much harder to scowl properly over the phone, and Clark was sure Bruce would be planning on quite a lot of that. There was hardly any doubt that word had gotten to Bruce about his "scandal" by now, what with how fast the media was known to run with anything even remotely Superman related. But that was not a battle Clark was awake enough to fight this early in the morning.

Unfortunately, Clark’s lucky streak had run out a long time ago.

“Kent!” Perry’s shout came from behind his glass wall and should have been muffled, but Clark heard it loud and clear. Trust his powers to start coming back in at the least opportune moment possible.

“Coming, Chief!”

Perry was in full glower mode when Clark cracked open the door. He didn’t even correct Clark about the “chief” thing, and that was a dead giveaway that Clark was in trouble. “Get in here, we don’t have all day.”

Clark hurried in, adjusting his glasses nervously. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“What did I want to talk to you about? Huh. I just don’t know, Kent. Sure there’s nothing you want to tell _me_? Something about interview plans? _Missed_ appointments? Anything like that?”

Clark was at a loss. “Uh…not that I...”

“Bruce Wayne! You stood up the owner of the god-damned Daily Planet and beyond that, you didn’t clear the interview with me first!” He was red faced and yelling, and that couldn’t be good for his blood pressure. Neither could the vein protruding from his temple. _What had Bruce said?_

“I had an interview with Mr. Wayne?” Clark tried lamely. Leave it to Bruce to stir up trouble for him at work just because he didn't like Clark's methods. At least now he had something to pretend to be angry about while Bruce was calling him an idiot.

“Apparently so!” Perry mimicked. “Now, I managed to get him to agree to a lunch appointment. You’re going to meet him at noon, _exactly_ noon, at the Bistro. Try not to oversleep for this one, or it’s your head on the chopping block, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir, it’ll get done. Don't you worry.”

Then Perry ordered him to get out, and Clark was left to write up a piece about local sports teams and do everything he possibly could to not think about the impending lunch with Bruce.

\----

When Clark walked into the fanciest restaurant in Metropolis just to find it empty, he knew immediately Bruce had done it.

There wasn’t a day that went by that this place wasn’t booked from open to close. Sometimes, Bruce was the very definition of extravagant. It wouldn’t have bothered Clark so much if Bruce had done it to be nice, but Clark was fairly certain this was just so Bruce could chew him out without being directly overheard by nosy patrons.

The host led Clark to a secluded booth in the back where he only had to wait for ten minutes before the whispers of the excited staff told him Bruce had arrived.

Apparently, he _had_ booked every table in the house.

“Kent, so good to see you again!” Brucie grinned, holding out his hand as Clark stood up to greet him. Clark didn’t miss the challenging gleam in his eyes.

“Afternoon, Mr. Wayne, I’m afraid I’ll have to apologize. I wasn’t aware we had something scheduled for today.” Clark said with a steady smile as they sat and the waiter came to bring them water. They ordered, Clark sticking with salad and water and Bruce picking something Clark didn’t think he could have pronounced properly even if he tried.

“Oh, no?” Bruce continued. To anyone listening, it was the very picture of nonthreatening conversation. Clark knew better. “You know, I had something similar happen to me recently. A friend ran off to a party in Brazil with absolutely no warning at all, even after saying he was gonna be in town for a few days. Can you imagine something like that?”

Oh yeah, Bruce was definitely not happy, but that was just too bad. “I’m not sure if those two are quite the same, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce propped his elbows up on the table, clasping his hands together. Clark saw the knuckles whitening as his grip tightened. “I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

The food was back lightning fast, maybe because literally none of the staff working had anything else to do, and Brucie was all smiles. “Thank you, Jared. That will be all.”

The waiter left quickly, and Bruce was silent again until they heard the very audible click of the kitchen door closing.

“I don’t see why you needed to go to these lengths for a simple conversation,” Clark began carefully. Just like that, the Brucie persona was gone in an instant. However, Clark wasn’t entirely sure if it was the other side of Bruce he had come to know, or Batman that was glaring at him now.

“The last _conversation_ we had, you disregarded everything I said.”

Clark pursed his lips, remembering that they couldn’t get into a shouting match in public, empty restaurant or no. “What was I supposed to do, Bruce? It was Lois, and she needed me. There was no option where I just sat and let her suffer.”

“You could have asked someone else. You had the comm link. Isn’t it you that keeps insisting we’re a team for a reason?”

He always had to go in for the sore spot, didn’t he? “Bruce-”

“And don’t argue that you’re fine,” Bruce interrupted. “You’re favoring your right leg and every movement of your shoulders is halted. I’ve trained three boys, you think I don’t know when I’m being bluffed?”

Clark’s anger sobered up at that. Bruce never, ever, alluded to Jason, especially if it was relevant. But his eyes were hard and unflinching as if he hadn’t even registered what he had said. There was something more that was wrong here, but not anything Clark understood. This time when Clark spoke, he tried to do so gently, “Waiting just one minute more could have meant she got hurt.”

“Didn’t she leave you?”

Clark visibly flinched at the accusation. Bruce was being unusually cruel, and he was testing the strength of Clark’s already thin patience. “That doesn’t change my wanting her safe, Bruce. She could stab me in the back tomorrow and I would still be there to catch her when she falls. And in any case, I can take care of myself.”

“There’s a pile of evidence stacked up against _that_ notion.”

“My hearing is already coming back, and this morning I was able to get across town in under a minute. Besides, my full strength will be back soon enough. It’s usually the last to return with something like this.”

It was the wrong argument to make, Clark realized, as Bruce’s face went from agitated to expressionless in the space of a second. “You went after her without your _strength_?” he spat out. “And what if it had come to a fight?”

Clark decided to leave out part about the gunman he knocked out.

“I’m not entirely useless in a fight, with or without my powers. Are you forgetting you’re the one that showed me how to fight with a disadvantage?”

The weeks upon weeks of training with Bruce under a simulated red sun in the Tower had been brutal, but made for some of Clark’s best memories. Then again, that was back when they were just becoming friends. Was it possible that Clark understood him even less now than he did back then? Bruce’s reactions lately had been all over the place, from kind, to vicious, everywhere in between and back again. Keeping up was almost as difficult as getting Bruce to let him in had been.

“You can’t be that reckless with a team counting on you to lead,” Bruce continued, not relenting in the slightest. “Or are you forgetting you told that one to me?”

Clark threw up his hands. “What do you want me to say? That I was irresponsible? Stupid? That I regret it? I don't. I wasn’t being reckless, Bruce, I was doing what needed to be done to protect a person I care about. But you won’t ever see it that way, will you? You’re mad that I didn’t fall in line with the plan you had laid out for me.”

“This isn’t about _me_ ,” Bruce insisted, but Clark caught the slight hardening in his eyes.

“I’m not one of your sons, Bruce. I don’t need to be looked after like…like…” Suddenly, like a slap to the face, everything clicked and Clark sat back heavily in the booth.

Bruce frowned, still angry, still ready to fight, but now he was also confused. “Like _what_?”

“You were worried,” Clark realized, half speaking to himself.

That was it. _That_ was the piece Clark had been missing.

This was what Bruce did every time one of the boys, or Oracle, or Huntress, anyone he felt responsible for did something that put their lives at risk, unnecessarily. Meaning every time they did something he didn’t expect, every time they came close to actually dying for good, which had been happening more and more frequently. He got angry, he yelled, shouted, lectured -  you name it. But it was always clear that he was only doing it because he cared about them. He only ever lashed like that out when they truly rattled him.

The barely noticeable stiffening in Bruce’s shoulders was all Clark needed to tell him he had hit the nail right on the head.

“Don’t reach, Clark," Bruce contested. "My only concern is for the team as a whole, and the mess you made of my city.”

Clark shook his head, a small smile forming at the corner of his mouth. “No way. I’m right – I scared you.”

Then Bruce was getting to his feet and leaving faster than any normal man had a right to. “This interview is over. Feel free to finish your meal and order desert, they’ll put it on my tab.”

Clark sat there for a second with his mouth open, stunned by the abrupt exit, and then he was on his feet chasing after Bruce.

“Bruce!” 

But Bruce was doing his level best to ignore Clark, making his way to the parking lot where Alfred waited in a shiny, black rental car.

He could have just let Bruce go, like he always did. Clark could have watched the car pull away, wait a few days for this confrontation to blow over and for their friendship slowly patch itself back to normal, but he didn’t. Not this time. Something in him simply refused to let this go, especially after Bruce had just unintentionally admitted caring about him.

The new information made a warm bubble feeling in his chest, but he didn’t let Bruce see his smile, knowing it would only cause the other man to shut down even further.

Clark reached out finally, spinning Bruce around to face him. “Don’t just walk away from me, Bruce. What happened to having a conversation?”

They were close, closer than Clark expected when he rushed up to grab him. Clark was suddenly all too aware of the way Bruce’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he cleared his throat, and of the press of his lips as he frowned. They were practically the same height (Clark slightly taller), eyes to eye, and Bruce had nowhere left to run. As the Bistro was empty, so was the enclosed parking lot. Alfred and the car were faced the other way, against the opposite wall. Clark had him cornered.

“I think we’ve run out of time, today,” Bruce insisted harshly, but he hadn’t pulled away.

Clark’s tongue darted out to lick his chapped lips, and did Bruce’s eyes just drift there? Was he as aware of Clark as Clark was of him? He was suddenly grateful Bruce didn’t have his talent for listening to pulses, because his was starting kick up a symphony and if Bruce had run before, he would certain take off then.

“Why can’t you just say it?” Clark pressed. “That my flying off with less than full power only made you mad because you’d just seen me get taken out by the Kryptonite explosion.”

“You could have waited.” It may have just been wishful thinking, but Clark thought he heard the unspoken, _for me_ , at the end of that sentence.

“Which time?”

“All of them.”

Clark’s heart was definitely hammering in his chest now, and he was only slightly afraid it was echoing through the lot. Bruce’s eyes were locked on his, and it was enough to make Clark practically _feel_ the heat of them.

“I’m not sorry for going to save her. I am sorry for worrying you. That was never my intent, I promise.”

Clark wasn’t sure who had stepped closer first, him or Bruce, but it was only inches between them, now. Less. All the hidden feeling Clark had tried so hard to shove aside was rushing back to the surface with every second Bruce wasn’t pulling away - he hadn’t so much as  _looked_ the other way. Was it possible he felt it too? The heat. The _pull_. The need to be closer still… _Hell_ , how he _wanted_ Bruce-

The beeping ringtone set for Perry blared from his back pocket, shattering the illusion. Bruce all but jumped backward out of reach, and Clark tried not to flinch too hard at the abrupt realization that no, it was very much not the same from Bruce. It was just the tension of the moment. Nothing more.

Clark switched off the ringing, looking back up just in time to see Bruce slipping into the car. This time there was no chase, no calling out his name, and the car pulled away, past Clark and out of sight.

He couldn’t shake the feeling of missed opportunity the rest of the day, nor the sour ache of a disappointment he had no right to feel.

\----

BRUCE

Bruce entered his room later that night, after hours of conditioning alone in the cave, only to find a bright red cape laying across his bed. For a moment he imagined Clark had put it there, and the thought sent his insides doing gymnastics, but of course that wasn’t it. Alfred had merely cleaned it and left it out for Bruce to give back to Clark.

Alfred had always made his fondness for Bruce and Clark’s friendship abundantly clear. Apparently, Clark was a “good influence” on him.

At that moment, Bruce would have to disagree, because today he had almost lost control for the second time in as many weeks. Clark had been standing there, looking so heart-achingly honest, the whole of his heart in his eyes, and something else Bruce really didn’t want to think about.

If there was only one thing Bruce Wayne had learned through his time as Brucie, it was what lust looked like.

But that couldn’t have been what he saw. He had to have been projecting his own emotions, because in that moment, Bruce had wanted nothing more than to take Clark’s face in his hands and just _show him_. Show him how fucking terrified he had been of losing Clark again ever since he’d died, just to come back as reckless and impulsive as ever. He wanted to show Clark with actions what he couldn’t say with words.

It was the single worst idea Bruce had ever had.

And he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

So Bruce had run in the other direction the very second Clark’s phone had broken the spell those god forsaken blue eyes had him under. He had never wanted the cowl so badly in all his years as Batman. The cowl offered a buffer between him and the emotion of the rest of the world - between him and himself, really. Without it, he was forced to face the sheer sincerity that was Clark Kent and it had almost been too much. He couldn't go on like this. Once, he had thought his will was like iron. Unshakable. Then Clark had come along and seen through him in every way imaginable, and that little delusion was torn to pieces. Clark  _saw_ him, and Bruce had no way to handle that without his life as Batman to throw in between them.

Everyone, especially Clark, was wrong about him. He wasn’t brave, and he wasn't wise. He was terrified, and he was a fool.

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a quickie, but I HAD to end it there because the next chapter is a mountain.


	5. He Is Unrelenting, Until It Breaks Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot of words. It's probably too much, honestly, but oh well. I would have broken it up, but didn't for momentum's sake.

CLARK

“Honey, I’m home!” Dick Grayson shouted, throwing open the door to Clark’s apartment with the spare key Clark had given him what seemed like an age ago.

Any other time, Clark would have loved a surprise visit from Dick. However, he was currently trying to rub balm on a burn he had gotten from running into a burning building just fifteen minutes prior. It would be healed soon enough, but at the moment it stung like all heck.

“Where you at, Supes?” Dick called. Clark cursed under his breath, scrambling to pull on a shirt and hide the evidence, but _ow_ that hurt like hell.

“Hey, give me just a second?” Clark called, hoping his voice didn’t sound too much like he was pulling cotton down over raw, exposed flesh.

“You know, the most important day of the year is coming up soon,” Dick began, walking toward the bedroom, decidedly not listening to Clark’s protest. Clark got just far enough along to have the shirt on halfway before Dick was in the bathroom doorway, looking at him with wide eyes. “Wow. How the hell did that happen?”

Clark sighed, giving up on the shirt. “I overestimated the integrity of a burning building.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Really? I never would have guessed.” He strode over to Clark’s side, lifting the back of the shirt to get a better look at the burn. He winced through his teeth. “You really messed up, huh?”

“To be fair to me, bullets bounced off my back without consequence earlier this week.” Excluding the exhausting ache, of course. Dick didn’t need to know about that. “There was no sign I’d still be susceptible to burns. Most of the internet is surprisingly out on the topic of Kryptonian regeneration.”

“Give me the cream,” Dick ordered. Clark complied, silently grateful for the help. Trying to twist his body around enough to reach the burn had hurt worse than actually getting burnt in the first place. If anything, this was proof he _really_ didn’t miss vulnerability.

“At any rate, this explains Bruce’s mood,” Dick commented.

That was not a subject Clark had any interest get into, especially since Bruce had been ignoring his calls. “What’s this about the most important day of the year? You know I don’t want anything for Superman appreciation day.” Dick poked hard at his back. “Hey!” Clark exclaimed. This whole being susceptible to minor injury ordeal was getting old, fast.

“My birthday, jerk. The best day of all your lives,” Dick explained, mercifully letting the subject change slide. Clark had to admit, Dick was efficient when it came to bandaging up wounds. At the very least he was much faster than Clark would have been on his own.

“Thanks,” Clark said as Dick finished up. Tugging on the shirt was much easier now that the wrap was covering it. “And of course I know it’s almost your birthday.”

Dick waved him off, leaving the bathroom to poach one of the bottles from Clark’s fridge. “Good, because I’ve just come up with your gift to me.”

“I really don’t think that’s how gift giving works.”

“Of course it is,” Dick argued, offering another one to Clark. “You being an alien and all, I can see where you would get confused, though.”

Clark didn’t take the drink, immediately suspicious. “What’s the gift…?”

Dick looked far too innocent, shrugging his shoulders a fraction and sipping all too casually to be natural. “Nothing, really. You don’t even have to spend a dime.”

“If you want me to agree, you’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”

“Come to the manor.”

Clark groaned out loud, rubbing his hands over his face. “Dick, you know I’d do just about anything for you, but that…”

Dick puffed out his lips in a mock pout. Clark didn’t look, knowing he was such a pushover when it came to Dick, to any of his friends really, when they wanted something.

“Come on, Clark, it can’t be that bad.”

“It’s not like _I’m_ the one with the problem, it’s Bruce.” Dick’s birthday was next week, and if he thought Bruce would be in a better mood that soon, Dick was more optimistic than Clark ever thought possible.

 “It takes two to avoid each other,” Dick countered.

“It also takes two to have a conversation, which he won’t do. You should have seen-”

“No, no, no,” Dick interrupted. “No excuses. You’re coming. That’s what I want for my birthday. Leave the handling of Bruce up to me.”

Clark raised a brow at that. “What are you going to do that I haven’t?”

“That’s for me to know and you to figure out when you’re older,” Dick supplied innocently. _Oh, no._

“You’re going to bring up the red card, aren’t you,” Clark realized, not able to keep the disapproval out of his tone. The red card was what they called the previous estrangement between Bruce and Dick, before Dick had been able to talk about the situation properly. Clark knew it was still something Dick hated bringing up, so using it against Bruce meant it was truly a last ditch effort. But it was one that would work, without a doubt.

“Don’t give me your judgement, Clark. I wouldn’t have to resort to his level if he’d just be reasonable.”

“I don’t want you to go _there_ over me.”

He simply rolled his eyes at Clark. “I’m not. I’m going there for _me._ I want you there with us on my birthday.”

Clark paced the small kitchen a few times, Dick watching him quietly. “Fine,” Clark decided with a sigh. “Fine, but I guess that means I won’t be doing the other thing I had planned.”

Dick froze, narrowing his eyes as he studied Clark, probably checking for a bluff. “What other thing?”

Clark shrugged, then regretted it immediately because _ow_. “I know you’ve been wanting to see the Fortress since I met you…”

“Shut up. You don’t mean that.”

“Do I?” Clark arched a brow at him, and Dick’s confidence visibly wavered.

“No. No way. You’re bluffing.” He was shaking his head, tilting it back and pursing his lips. It was all Clark could do to not break down laughing at the sight of Dick’s internal struggle.

“You can think whatever you want, Dick,” Clark teased. “I’m heading up to the roof for one last check before I call it a night. You’re welcome to join me, it’s totally up to you.” With that, Clark slipped out of the room, speeding into his suit and exiting thought the fire escape before Dick even had time to process.

“Wait! Were you serious? Clark? CLARK!”

Oh, sometimes being mean felt so, so good.

\----

BRUCE

It was early afternoon and Bruce was sitting at the breakfast table, reading over the Gotham Gazette and the Daily Planet at the same time while Tim sat beside him, typing away at his laptop.

Dick walked in, swinging the door wide and mumbling incoherently to himself. He scowled at Bruce as he passed. “The things I do for this family.”

Bruce studied him, utterly confused. “Excuse me?”

Dick shook his head, let out a frustrated sigh, and kept walking into the kitchen toward food, grumbling the whole way.

Bruce looked to Tim. “What is that about?”

Tim shrugged. “No idea. Maybe that last screw finally came loose.”

\----

Before patrol that night, Dick caught Bruce alone in the cave.

“Bruce, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he started cautiously.

“I’m listening,” Bruce answered. Something told him he wasn’t about to like whatever Dick had to say.

“About the birthday next week…”

Oh, he was absolutely not going to like this.

“I was just thinking about having a get together here, if you wouldn’t mind, of course.”

Bruce froze. It was the first birthday in a while they had been on good terms for, better than good terms, and Bruce wanted Dick here on his birthday more than he was ever going to admit out loud. Dick knew that. So what was this about? “Of course I don’t mind.”

There was a condition coming, he knew it without a doubt. Dick nodded slowly, and _here it comes_ , Bruce thought, bracing himself. “I don’t want anything big, I mean that,” Dick preempted.

“No Wayne party or anything like that. But Barbara said she’d make time. Helena and Cassandra won’t be able to come, but that’s fine. So it’ll just be the family minus a few…”

That didn’t sound bad at all. Bruce frowned slightly. “That’s it?”

“Not quite. Clark, too.”

“Dick…” Bruce warned and suddenly Dick was walking forward and holding out his hands.

“Come on, Bruce, I said family and he’s like family to me. And I know, despite the fight you two are having, that you’ve been friends for a long time. _One_ night in the same room won’t kill you.”

“He’s family?” Bruce repeated, more than a little surprised by that statement. He knew Dick didn’t take that sort of thing lightly. It wasn’t a concept any of them just tossed around for fun.

Dick pursed his lips. “He’s been there for me. He was there when…”

That shut down any argument Bruce had been about to fire off, the guilt rising like bile in his throat.

He had to ask, even if it was senseless, _tactless_ , ill-advised; “Are you and he…?”

Dick looked immediately disgusted, physically recoiling. “What?! No! Hell, Bruce, seriously? You have to ask that? I’ve known him since I was like twelve and he was twenty something, that’s just _weird_.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Bruce apologized, knowing as soon as the words had left his mouth that it was an idiotic question. There was an awkward pause, then Dick started laughing, shaking his head side to side. “What?”

Dick waved him off, still chuckling to himself at some silent joke. “Nothing. Nothing, Bruce. God.”

“…He can come.”

“You’ll behave?”

“I’ll be an absolute joy to be around.”

“Awesome.” Dick declared as he started heading to his bike, throwing a hand up. “See you out there!”

Bruce didn’t respond, rubbing his hands over his face before sliding on the cowl. It was becoming impossible to avoid Clark, and Dick was right, they were still technically friends (even if Bruce’s thoughts refused to stay in check every time he looked Clark’s way). If Bruce had learned anything over the past few days, it was that he certainly did not want to lose that bond they had formed. He would bottle up his impulses and burry them deep within his mind, as he had done with countless other things before. This time should be no different, as long as he put in the work to ensure it.

For Dick, Bruce would suck it up and face Clark sooner rather than later.

\----

In the Watchtower, after the scheduled bi-weekly meeting that Superman had been barred from; Bruce, Diana, Barry, Victor, Arthur, and J’onn, the present founding members (J’onn was practically one anyway), stayed back while the other members slowly trickled out. They were more somber than usual, all feeling the distinct absences of Hal and Clark.

“I’m just gonna come out and say what we all are thinking,” Barry began, shifting to lean forward with his arms draped out across the table. “Superman is the best at morale speeches. We need him back.”

“Batman, you did fine,” Victor insisted. Whether or not that was strictly true, no one dared to not listen to Batman when he was speaking to the League. That was why he had been the one to address them that day, along with Diana.

“Of course he did,” Diana agreed easily, “but Flash has a valid point. Luckily, he’ll be back by the weekend.”

“You spoke with him?” Bruce asked, unable to stop that impulsive little question before it was out.

Barry snorted. “Just because _you_ don’t call to check in with us after a near death experience, doesn’t mean everyone else is that inconsiderate. He got in touch with each of us after he got back to Metropolis to let us know he was alright.”

Batman gave him a look. “I don’t _get_ myself into situations where I’d have near death experiences in the first place.”

“Often,” Arthur corrected, arms crossed.

J’onn, ever the voice of reason, interrupted before an argument could spring up. “I think we can all agree we’ll be happy to have Superman back on active duty.”

“Any word yet from Hal?” Diana asked the group. “Or the other Lanterns?”

“Rayner has been tight lipped about whatever they went off world to do,” Batman added. “I’m not sure how much he actually knows.”

“You were the last one to talk to him, not that I’m resentful or anything,” Barry said. “He gave no hint as to when he’d come back?”

“We hardly ever know when he comes or goes, I suppose we should be lucky he said anything at all,” Arthur said.

“He sounded final,” Batman added. He had never said the words so bluntly before, though they had all been thinking it for some time.

That created another heavy silence over the six of them.

“We’ll have to bring Rayner closer into the fold,” Victor reasoned, breaking some of the tension. His human eye was unfocused, paying more attention now to the digital world inside his head. If Clark were here, he would talk to him about it, ask how things were going. But that wasn’t Bruce’s way of doing things, so he didn’t pry.

Barry rolled his eyes. “So he can ditch us like every other Lantern we know?”

“Hal didn’t _ditch_ the team…this time,” Diana argued carefully. They all knew Barry had taken Hal’s sudden departure the worst, as Barry had been the closest to him out of the original seven. Bruce suspected Barry was still harboring some sort of jealousy towards him for being the one Hal came to, too.

“We’ve been through this sort of situation the first time he left, and we’re still standing. We can do it again. We’ve been through worse with Superman, too. It only feels bad now because of the relative quiet we’ve taken for granted over the past few months,” Arthur asserted. “So. Where do we stand with the information on the warehouse incident?”

“Palmer’s test came back conclusive for a chemically altered strain of Kryptonite. It wasn’t 100% the real deal,” Barry explained. “At the very least, we can be grateful he hasn’t shown sign of some hidden stockpile of _that_.”

Bruce grunted in affirmation. “The gang members incarcerated in Arkham are under some sort of mind altering agent. They’ve had to be restrained. The ones that didn’t manage to kill themselves first, anyway.”

Diana drummed her fingers on the table. “J’onn, can you take a look at them when you have the opportunity? Examine them for traces of another presence acting in their minds?”

“Certainly, Diana.”

“Luthor’s books are all tied up. He appears clean as a whistle, just like every other time he’s tried something,” Victor added.

“From what the device Superman and I planted during the gala could pull, we know that he’s been frequenting that lab more than any other. They’ve been moving something in large quantities, and I would hazard the guess that it’s the robots and the new brand Kryptonite.”

“Have you tailed him?” Bruce just tipped the cowl in Barry’s direction. “Fair enough, stupid question.”

“Nothing else out of his routine has changed, his meetings with government officials, businessmen, security – all in line with the past year of his life.”

“We expected that,” Victor commented, nodding. “He’s been more careful ever since he was forced to resign presidency.”

“ _Why_ in Gotham?” Barry wondered aloud.

That wasn’t the first time the question had come to Bruce’s mind. It was troubling for a number of reasons. Either it had been a complete gamble, a far-fetched scheme of a mad-man, or, much more likely, Luthor had somehow known Superman would be in the city.

“It’s no secret Batman and Superman have worked together in the past. People go so far as to call all of the League best friends,” Victor supplied.

Arthur scoffed. “They’ve never seen Batman interact with the likes of Shazam.”

“Or you and Green Arrow,” Bruce retorted, his voice bland.

“Boys,” Diana chided lazily, but good naturedly. “I agree with Flash’s concern, as well. There is too much we are in the dark about.”

“He’ll attack again, we all know that,” Barry muttered. “This isn’t the last of whatever he has planned.”

“Exactly. It was like that was only a test.”

Arthur nodded. “I trust you will keep your watch over Gotham, Batman, but maybe we should talk to Superman about setting up a surveillance of Metropolis.”

“We should set the word out for our people to be extra vigilant once you figure out what’s going on in their heads, too, J’onn. An attack on Gotham could mean he’s liable to go anywhere he thinks Superman would go,” Barry suggested.

“Kara left to return to Amazonia. That’s one less Kryptonian we have to watch for,” Bruce said. Diana was giving him a strange look, one he was purposefully ignoring. Barry noticed, and studied Bruce as well. Bruce didn’t have to try to get his mouth into a stubborn line, frowning instead of playing into whatever they were doing.

Victor spoke up again. “We’ll keep digging. Something will give, eventually. It always does.”

“Until then, where do we stand on the imitation of new members?” Arthur began, directing the conversation back to business and away from speculation.

Bruce was grateful for the opportunity. _This_ he could throw himself into, distracting his mind with matters of the league not involving Clark. It was safe, and it gave his obsessive mind a reprieve as it switch over again to Batman-mode. And debating against the applications heroes he most certainly did not like was very Batman indeed.

\----

CLARK

“I still can’t believe you actually voted in favor of my suspension,” Clark accused, sitting on a park bench in Metropolis next to none other than Diana Prince. She had come to tell him his suspension period was over, so long as he agreed to be looked over by Ray Palmer later that day to ensure he wasn’t bluffing his recovery.

To her credit, she looked apologetic. “Bruce made good points when he called for the vote while you were in the hospital. You made it clear you weren’t going to ease back on your own, and even one weakened link in battle can mean defeat. You didn’t leave us much of a choice.”

Clark rolled his eyes. “Of course Bruce gave a speech.”

Diana put her hand over his, smiling. “Just like you would have done if he had been the one Barry had to carry off of the field.”

“Of course, because he’s human, I’m-”

“Vulnerable to Kryptonite?” Diana cut in, smirking.

He sniffed, only slightly indignant. “It’s still different.”

Diana laughed, the sound easy, loud, and unrestrained. She never saw reason to quiet herself in moments like this, and he wished he could be more like her in that way. Even as Superman, he had his reservations. “Clark, you’re being obstinate.”

“Alright, fine, I’ll give you that one.”

“You know,” she hedged, looking away and pretending to be extremely interested in her nails. “I couldn’t help but notice the two of you have been avoiding each other, again.”

“He’s the one avoiding me,” Clark mumbled, and that got her attention back instantly. He winced at his mistake.

“ _That_ is the same tone you used after your father’s funeral, when you told me he had visited unexpectedly. You obsessed over it for days after. What happened this time?”

Clark sighed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Diana put her hand gently on his shoulder. “Clark?”

Because she was Diana, and she was his friend, and he had been feeling rather short on friends recently, he told her. “He kissed me, Diana.”

Her hands flew to her mouth, covering up the sharp intake of breath. “ _Bruce_ did? Our Bruce?”

“No, it wasn’t – it’s not – not like that,” Clark spluttered. He sat back again, running his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends. He hadn’t said anything about the incident out loud, but now that it was out, he might as well tell her the whole of it. “It was for the mission at the LexCorp event.”

Her eyebrows shot skyward, but her eyes were shining like she was about to start laughing. _Rao,_ he hoped she wouldn’t start laughing, he might go hysterical. “Barry and I didn’t have to kiss for the mission. Why did you?”

“There was a security guard, and a stairwell, and we didn’t want to raise any alarm, and then _he kissed me_.”

“Oh,” she breathed out, seeming almost as stunned as he had been. If that was even possible.

“Yes, _oh_ ,” Clark repeated flatly.

“So you told him, then?” Diana asked, her tone so matter-of-fact that Clark actually did a double take.

“What?! Have you gone insane, Diana? Of course I didn’t.”

Diana’s brows pinched in confusion, and he could tell she was having one of her ‘ _men are so needlessly complicated’_ moments. “But _he_ kissed _you_?”

“For the mission,” Clark reiterated. “Not for…for any other reason. Trust me. He wasn’t even fazed by it.”

“But you were?” she pressed. Clark turned to face her, giving her his best, _are you kidding me,_ look. She conceded with a tilt of her head. “You were.”

“To put it mildly.”

“What happened next?”

“Nothing, I guess. We finished the job, kept our cover, and then headed out. After that he briefed the rest of you, and we met up back at his place.” Her eyebrows shot up again suggestively, and Clark felt his face flush an even brighter red. “ _No_! Diana, it was just that one kiss. Nothing…nefarious happened.”

She tried to cover up her laugh, but failed. Clark covered his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, Clark. Truly.”

“You sound utterly remorseful,” Clark deadpanned.

She ignored his sarcasm. “But Clark, don’t you see? This means you’ve been worried for nothing.”

“How so?”

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. “When you and I were together, we never once found a need to kiss during a mission. Surely there had to have been ample opportunity at one turn or another, but we didn’t. The same is true for myself and Bruce, and Shayera and John, and all the others who have been in relationships at one point of another.”

“That just proves it was only for the sake of the mission…” Clark paused, backtracking. “Wait, you were in a relationship with Bruce?”

She waved his question away. “Not in the sense you’re referring to, it was never serious. Don’t look at me like that, Clark.”

“I wasn’t looking at you in any sort of way.” That was a lie, and she knew it, but she let it slide.

“Bruce would do anything for the mission, and do nothing that would jeopardize it. We’ve fought by his side for years now, we know this. _Unless_ his emotional impulses got the better of him.”

“I think you’re reaching, Diana. I don’t think he even _has_ those when he sets his mind to something.”

“I’m not reaching. You’ve always been close with him, Clark, more so than any of the rest of us have, and we are his friends too. You and he have always been different. Maybe it’s because of that bond that you are unable to see what everyone else can.”

Clark forced himself not to think about what she meant by everyone else seeing it. He could only take so much embarrassment, and that was without adding the new information that other people had _known_ he’d been pinning over his best friend. What kind of a leader was he?

So instead, Clark deflated and relented. “Assuming you’re right, what would he even want with a guy like me?”

Diana pursed her lips, then shook her head slowly. “That isn’t for me to say, Clark. I’m just telling you to open your eyes.”

Clark was quiet for a moment. “You think I should have kissed him.”

“Yes. You’ve been interested in him for years, Clark. We both know that, don’t argue with me. You loved Lois, but you felt something for him too, even if it was only sexual attraction.”

Clark hadn’t known his face could get any hotter, but there it went, defying the odds. “He’ll run. He’ll push me away, D. I don’t know if I want to risk that.”

Diana smiled. “That’s up to you. But how will you ever know of you don’t try?”

\----

Two nights after meeting with Diana, Clark flew to the outskirts of the manor property, landing far enough away to give him a few minutes’ walk until he had to knock on the door. He hadn’t seen Bruce in person in a little over a week, even though Clark knew they had both been in the Watchtower at the same time on multiple occasions. He’d checked (annoying Arthur in the process and possibly J’onn, but it was hard to tell with the Martian sometimes). It was as if Bruce was going out of his way to keep from seeing him, again, and Clark was just about sick of it.

That being said, he almost wanted to tuck tail and fly back to Metropolis right then before anyone saw him.

Not that he really would. Dick wanted him there, for whatever reason, and so he would come. Clark knew it was a big thing for the Wayne boys, all being under the same roof on a day like this after all they had gone through as a family and as heroes. He couldn’t have been happier that Dick and Bruce had reconciled, and he did want to show support.

He just didn’t want to do it with Diana’s words floating around in the back of his head, making him hopeful when he shouldn’t be. He needed to be pragmatic. Like Bruce was.

Dick had told him that no one who didn’t know his identity would be there tonight, so he was able to come as just Clark. Oracle, her real name was Barbara Gordon (wasn’t it a funny coincidence that she and the commissioner shared the same name?), would be there and even though neither Clark nor Bruce had ever told her explicitly, he knew that she knew Superman’s alter ego was Clark Kent. Clark wasn’t entirely convinced there was anything she didn’t know about. So if all else failed the night ended in ruin, at least he would finally get to meet her in person.

“Master Clark,” Alfred greeted him. The butler looked, if Clark wasn’t imagining it, at ease tonight. He was still every bit as formal, but he seemed less strained. Clark wished he could steal some of that calm for a few hours. “You’re just in time, I believe.”

Clark grinned. “For the bloodbath or the cake?”

“Cake, if we are lucky. Both, if we are being realistic.”

Clark chuckled, holding out his hand to Alfred. “Good to see you, Alfred.”

“You as well, sir. They’re in the living room, if you’ll just follow me.”

This time, Clark remembered not to bring a jacket with him. He still needed to get that cape back from Bruce, now that he thought about it. He had been using a spare from the Fortress, but really he preferred the one he’d left at the manor.

“There he is!” Dick exclaimed, jogging around the couches in the massive room to greet him (seriously, Clark didn’t think he’d ever seen ceilings this high in a place people actually lived).

“Sorry I’m late, Dick, you know how traffic gets this time of year,” Clark joked.

“Yeah. I’m sure the geese migration was pretty rough on you. You missed dinner, but that’s fine because I ate your share. Call it your bonus gift to me.”

“Ah, speaking of gifts…” Clark teased, making a show of rooting around in his pockets.

Dick rolled his eyes. “Keep decent for the children.”

“You ass, I’m not a child,” Tim pipped back from where he sat chattering to Bruce on the other side of the room. Clark wasn’t looking that way, not at all.

“Here,” Clark said, holing out a small crystal, delicately engraved with small numbers.

Dick frowned, turning it over in his fingers as he inspected it. “Is it insulting if I ask where you got this?”

Clark stuck his hands in his pockets, shrugging. There was no way to keep the sly grin off his face if he tried. Clark watched Dick’s eyes go from the crystal, up to him, then back again.

“Are you serious?” Dick deadpanned as it dawned on him.

The numbers were a specific date and time, one week from now. He’d gotten the day off from Perry, on the promise that he’d cover sports for the whole week their regular sports guy was on vacation.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clark said simply, patting Dick on the shoulder as he moved past him to introduce himself to Barbara. Dick just stood there for a moment, dumbstruck, then quickly pocketed the gift and turned back to the group with a massive, not-subtle–at-all grin on his face.

“Now that Clark has graced us with his otherworldly presence, I think it’s time for more food! I’ll be right back.”

Clark flashed a less arrogant smile at Barbara as he approached, holding out his hand to her. She took it, looking as if she found the whole scene hilarious. “You obviously did a good job picking out a gift, I only ever see him that excited over weapons or eating. Clark Kent, it’s nice to finally meet you!”

“I’d say I’m a fan of your work, but that sounds a little condescending since you’ve saved my behind more than a few times now.”

She smiled wider, the slightest of blushes dotting her cheeks. “Well you’re Superman, and you just complimented me, so I’m pretty sure my year has just been made.”

Clark laughed, sitting on the arm of the couch next to her wheelchair. “Hopefully you won’t find Clark Kent a disappointment.”

“Not at all! I hear baggy suits were all the rage in the nineties. Or so my dad tells me.”

Clark winced theatrically, making her giggle, and Dick came back into the room brandishing a large yellow cake with Alfred following behind with plates and utensils. “Wow, Babs, way to make a _solid_ first impression with the insults. No pulled punches from you tonight, huh?”

“Didn’t you throw a Batarang at him when you met him?” Tim asked, sticking his finger in the icing and twisting away before Dick had a chance to swat at him.

“It was endearing,” Clark assured him, though they were far from paying much attention to what he was saying now that food was in front of them. Barbara winked at Clark, accepting a plate from Alfred.

“So _you’re_ the reason for his inflated ego.”

Dick scoffed. “I can do inflated ego all on my own.”          

\----

BRUCE

Bruce stood against the doorframe, watching the boys, Barbara and Clark mill around the cake. Icing was being thrown at faces, and then Tim was deftly lifted back by Clark to avoid an all-out food fight in Alfred’s (previously) immaculate living room. They were all laughing, Barbara too, and Bruce smiled from behind his glass as he took it all in.

Clark had folded in seamlessly, not an awkward misstep in sight. Though Bruce hadn’t expected anything different – Barbara had not-so-slyly been bringing up Superman from the very moment Dick had told her he was coming to their little celebration. In truth, it had annoyed the hell out of Bruce. He had enough thoughts of Clark to keep at bay without the added help from his Oracle.

Even Diana had been pestering him about Clark, and she was even less subtle.

 _“You haven’t looked Clark in the eye once,”_ she had said to him yesterday in the Watchtower. There was a good reason for that – he felt a second away from spontaneous combustion every time he did.

Add it all together, plus his usual brand of overthinking, and it was enough to create a steady flow of anxiety over the past few days. Bruce had been dreading tonight as much as he had been hopeful for it. Thankfully, Clark had missed dinner, so he hadn’t had to face the man straight away. Though he knew he would have to, soon. He still had the cape to return, after all. And it wasn’t exactly as if he could get lost in the crowd of partiers, there being only six people including himself in the room.

Yet it was strange – Clark hadn’t so much as spared him a glance. Bruce knew, because it was himself who couldn’t keep his eyes in check. Usually, Bruce could feel Clark’s eyes searching him out in a crowd, but tonight he’d been just as distant as Bruce. That small difference gave him an uneasy tension in his shoulders and gut.

When had he come to care how often Clark caught his eye?

Right – ever sense he’d lost his damn mind.

Bruce tipped the last of the champagne into his mouth as Alfred came to stand by his side. “Not in the mood for cake, sir?”

“I think I’ll wait until they call a cease fire,” Bruce replied, Alfred taking his glass. Alfred merely hummed in response, enough to tell Bruce that Alfred didn’t approve of him standing by the sidelines. “What? It’s a celebration, Alfred, I’m allowed to be relaxed.”

“Yes, my thoughts exactly.”

Alfred stepped out of the room, presumably to put away the glass. Bruce knew when he was being reprimanded, but he stayed put nonetheless with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the woodwork.

Dick looked up, catching his eye. “Bruce, hurry up and grab some before this thing ends up on Tim’s head.”

Barbara was holding out a plate already set for him, grinning. “He’s not kidding.”

The vibration alarm on his watch buzzed silently, stealing his attention. “I’ll be right there, give me a minute.” Bruce turned out of the room, and into the hallway.

It was a signal from Huntress. She’d sent a message about the Odessa Mob arms deal she’d been tailing for the past week. He had to hand it to her, her patience was improving. It wasn’t too long ago that she would have run in, crossbow blazing at the barest hint of trouble.

“Bruce,” Clark’s voice called out, ripping Bruce away from typing his response. With a frustrated sigh at the interruption, Bruce looked up to see Clark heading towards him, arms crossed over his chest. “Work?” he asked stiffly.

“Not that I need your approval, Clark, but no. Just an update.”

“An update about work,” Clark corrected, not bothering to hide the disapproval in his tone. “I heard your watch go off back there. The rest of them didn’t notice.”

Clark was giving him a signature judgmental Boy Scout look, and it only served to irritate Bruce more. “You came out here to tell me you heard my watch?” Bruce interpreted tonelessly. Apparently, his words had come out more biting than he had intended, because Clark’s eyebrows pushed themselves together like he was pained, and he was doing the insufferable little head tilt again. _Damn him._

“This really means something to Dick, you know,” Clark began and Bruce stepped forward, cutting him off.

“I know that. It means something to me too. Don’t go making assumptions, Clark.” Bruce really had to remember to stop using Clark’s name, because it was doing things to the emotions coiled up in his stomach. He scowled, masking it effortlessly.

Clark took a step forward too. _Bad, bad, bad_ , Bruce’s instincts fired off in his head at the same time they were screaming for him to _close the gap_.

“That’s not what I meant, Bruce.”

“What _did_ you mean?” That time he intended the harshness, finding that it eased some of the coiling tension.

Clark’s face relaxed, the stiffness wiped away like water only to be replaced by something else. Regret. “I’m sorry if my being here is making you uncomfortable.”

“It doesn’t.” That was a blatant lie, but not for the reasons Clark must have been thinking.

He wasn’t buying it. “Really? Because you didn’t take a step towards the group once I got there.”

So he _had_ been looking.

“I didn’t want to steal your spotlight,” Bruce said without thinking. The words were too honest, but he realized too late. He saw Clark’s reaction, and knew the champagne had been a bad idea. It was obviously stronger than Bruce remembered.

“Bruce, that’s not possible with you in the room.”

It could have been a sarcastic quip. A joke meant only to tease. It could have been either of those things, but Clark’s face was too damn earnest for that to be true. Bruce felt his back go rigid, so made his eyes harden to match. “Funny. Come up with that one all on your own, Superman?”

Clark looked wounded again for a brief moment before he was able to cover it up, and Bruce knew immediately he had said the right thing to get him to back off. The problem was, Bruce didn’t understand why. He only knew that he regretted being the reason for that expression on Clark’s face.

The apology was right there, on the tip of his tongue, all he had to do was let the words loose, but Bruce swallowed them down, painfully, instead. “You left your cape here, last time, don’t forget it again.”

He knew he was being cold, but he let the words hang in the air anyway. Clark didn’t answer, just stared at him with an unreadable expression.  Bruce swallowed stiffly, and moved past Clark, careful not to brush up against him as he walked back into the room.

\----

CLARK

Hours later, after the cake was all but decimated, it was if nothing had happened between Clark and Bruce in the hallway. They were laughing and joking (as much as Bruce ever did) with everyone else, and Clark could almost pretend that everything was fine. That this was just them being friends and that there _wasn’t_ something bothering Bruce, and that Clark _didn’t_ have trouble keeping his eyes off him at every turn.

Their conversation in the hallway had been enough to tip Clark off that Bruce had something else going on in his head that was making him so agitated. Could it just be stress?

“Did you guys _really_ get stranded in a desert off-world, or was Bruce just trying to be funny again with that one?” Dick was asking from his spot on the floor at Barbara’s feet.

Clark didn’t have to fake a laugh at that one. “No, we really got stranded. It was supposed to be a diplomatic mission, so the red sun wouldn’t have been an issue, but when does anything with us ever go to plan?”

“So how aren’t you dead?”

Clark took a drink, smirking at the memories. Hot sun, angry citizens, Bruce’s face when they realized they would have to walk their way back to the capitol. “We were very diplomatic.”

Bruce chuckled. The sound warmed Clark more than the alcohol ever could. “We helped start a coup, and then Green Lantern eventually caught our signal and came to extract us.”

“The signal that Bruce made from scratch,” Clark interjected. Honestly, between fighting and trading jabs, sometimes Clark didn’t think about the fact that it wasn’t just Bruce’s money that made the many gadgets and weapons Batman carried. It was Bruce’s incredible brain that did most of the heavy lifting.

He pictured Bruce as he had been then, stubbornly hunched over scraps of metal and wire and crystal, and covered in sweat, brushing back strands of… Nope. Thinking about that was a bad idea. Very bad.

Clark took another drink, just to give his mouth something to do.

“Only after you swindled the parts for us.”

Clark put on his best affronted face, not that anyone was really paying much attention. “Swindled is a word for a criminal. I _charmed_ them. I can be very charming, thank you.”

“Easy for Superman to do without a shirt on. We were lucky they had such a keen interest in Human biology.”

Dick chocked, spewing water everywhere as Barbara laughed and hit his back, trying to help him recover. Alfred was as stoic as ever, but Tim had his fists in his eyes, “Nope, nope, nope,” he protested. “Too much information.”

Clark went bright red for the millionth time. “On that note,” he said quickly, pushing up from his place on the floor. “I should probably be heading back.”

“Aw come on, so soon?” Dick complained after catching his breath again. “Bruce promises not to embarrass you again.”

“I made no promises,” Bruce muttered, his grin sharp. It made Clark’s stomach do a flip, and he was glad he couldn’t blush any more than he already was.

“It’s half past one in the morning, Dick, and unlike the rest of you, I do have a day job I can’t oversleep for.”

“Alright fine, be a party-pooper,” Dick sulked, but then he was smiling wide and lazy the next second. How much had he had to drink? “Thanks for coming by, Clark!”

He was halfway to the door before he heard Bruce’s footsteps following him. For anyone else, it might had been a little weird, maybe creepy, that he knew the pattern of his friends stride without having to think; that  he could pick out the sound in a crowd as well as he could Bruce’s pulse. But he was Superman, and he was giving himself a pass.

“Forgetting something?”

“Right. Cape.” Clark had been half-hoping that “forgetting” it here would give him an excuse to come back for it later. So much for that idea. “Just in the coat closet?” he asked, heading towards the small door by the stairs.

“No. It’s up in my bedroom,” Bruce corrected. Clark was about to ask _why_ , when Bruce answered for him. “Alfred left it there for me to give you back next I saw you.”

And the only reason it was still up there was because Bruce hadn’t seen him. Because of the avoiding. Clark decided not to voice that part though, because he was enjoying going five minutes without getting the cold shoulder from his friend, and calling him out was always a toss-up. Sometimes he took it in stride, gave as good as he got, but other times he would lock down faster than Fort Knox.

“Lead the way,” Clark gestured with a smile, swinging his arm out wide like an idiot. And he knew he must have looked like an idiot from the way Bruce just staring at him blankly. “Or, you know, don’t,” he added as an afterthought, because no one made him feel awkward the way Bruce did.

Bruce shook his head, maybe in resignation, and started walking with his hands in his pockets up the stairs.

“So what did you get Dick?” Clark asked, hoping he sounded casual enough and not forced.

He watched Bruce shrug slightly. “Not keys to the kingdom.”

“It wasn’t a key, I don’t tend to give those things out for general security purposes, you know. I was just messing with him a little, honestly. The invitation was only a crystal so he’d figure out where it came from without me saying it.”

“I don’t think I ever got an invitation.”

Clark laughed. “Because you didn’t need one.”

Bruce didn’t answer back immediately, but Clark wasn’t sure why. It was obvious wasn’t it? Bruce was always welcome. He had been since he had allowed Clark into the Batcave. Clark knew the cave was practically sacred space to Bruce, few people ever really seeing it. That had been the first time Clark really knew Bruce had begun to trust him, and he, Bruce. But it was before that, really, that Clark knew Bruce was the exception to his “no visitors” rule. Bruce had just beaten him to the punch.

It was a trust that ran deeper than most. Bruce knew that.

_But what if he didn’t?_

When they reached Bruce’s door opening into the master bedroom of the manor, Clark brought it up, “You know I trust you, don’t you Bruce?”

Bruce frowned in confusion. “Yes, Clark,” he answered back slowly, but he phrased it almost like a question.

“Bruce, you’re the second most regular visitor the Fortress gets. The first is me, and the third is Kara who has been twice, followed closely by Diana who’s seen it once.”

The carefully blank expression that followed, an attempt to convey prior knowledge, was a dead giveaway that Bruce _hadn’t_ known.

Bruce grunted, and turned away to walk toward the bed.

“Gee, thanks Clark, it’s great to know you count me so highly. I really appreciate that,” Clark mimicked in a voice that was both supposed to be Bruce and so obnoxiously Not-Bruce that Clark almost made himself laugh out loud.

Bruce thrust out the red cape, giving Clark a distinctly unamused glance. “Uncanny. I almost thought the words came from my own mouth.”

Clark grinned, choosing to ignore the sarcasm. “Thank you. See, this isn’t hard, being friendly.”

“Maybe not for you, Boy Scout. Take your cape.”

He was making it hard to stay cheerful, but Clark was determined. If they could get past this angry, brooding part of their relationship then maybe they could get back to being friends and Clark would be able to worry about Bruce less (fat chance of that actually happening, Clark was in way too deep to slow it down now).

Clark took the cape, regardless. “Thanks. And I was never actually a Boy Scout, you know.”

“So you keep telling me,” Bruce deadpanned, but it was different this time. Normally, Clark could hear the subtle tease, letting him know it wasn’t Bruce just being an ass, but making a joke. There wasn’t a hidden joke there this time.

Clark pursed his lips when Bruce looked away, crossing his arms. “Ok, let’s hear it. Get it off your chest.”

Bruce turned back, suspicious. “What?”

“Whatever it is that’s got you shutting down every time we talk for more than three sentences at a time.”

“There is nothing on my chest to get off. You should head home, Clark.”

Oh, no. Not this time. Clark had had more than enough of this evasion tactic. He was patient, some might say erringly so, but he cared about his friend, about _Bruce_ , more. He knew Bruce wouldn’t let him in unless he was forced to do so, so that exactly was what Clark was going to do.

“Why can’t you just say what it is you want from me, Bruce? Because I really don’t understand what I did to piss you off and make you hate the sight of me like this. I thought we were good, I thought we were…” he threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “I thought we were friends. _Rao_ , you used to trust me, but now you’ll hardly even give me the time of day!”

Bruce rounded on him so fast Clark could only blink back in surprise. “I trust you, Clark. That’s not what this is,” he growled, getting in Clark’s face with eyes on fire.

Clark was sick of backing down, of letting Bruce get away with saying whatever he wanted and then letting it go. “What is it then?” he demanded, trying and failing to keep from raising his voice again.

“It’s _me_ that I can’t trust anymore. Not you.”

“What…what does that even mean?” Clark asked, incredulous.

He searched Bruce’s face, looking for some clue as to where this was coming from and he could almost pinpoint the exact moment Bruce shut down, as if Clark could see those invisible shields fall down hard behind his eyes.

“Nothing,” Bruce spat, turning back around, his fists clenched hard as he stalked toward the windowed balcony and away from Clark.

“Bullshit,” Clark deadpanned. He followed Bruce, putting a hand on his arm to force the other man to face him, but Bruce jerked his arm out of his reach, unrelenting. Clark groaned. “Why won’t you talk to me? What happened, Bruce? Tell me, and maybe I can help. I _want_ to help you.”

At that Bruce let out a harsh laugh. Clark knew it as the self-deprecating one he used when he was being especially vicious to himself. He had only ever heard it a few times, and he doubted Bruce realized that Clark knew it for what it was, and not the outward cruelty others took it for. Bruce was rarely ever cruel to anyone but himself, even when he was yelling his head off and growling.

“You can’t _help_.”

Clark deflated a little, despite himself – despite now knowing that it wasn’t him Bruce was mad at. “How do you know?” Bruce didn’t answer. Clark closed his eyes and counted to ten, trying not to bite down too hard on the inside of his cheek. “Please, Bruce,” Clark asked again, this time making his voice softer.

“I can’t trust myself around you anymore,” Bruce admitted finally, his voice dangerously low.

Clark flinched a little at the words, and he was glad for once that Bruce wasn’t looking at him. He didn’t know why that hurt. Well, maybe he _did_ , maybe he knew exactly why, but Bruce was still talking so he shoved those feelings aside for now. This was about Bruce, not his own feelings.

“If I can’t trust myself, then what good am I for the mission? What purpose do I serve?” Bruce continued. “If I can’t be one hundred and ten percent confident in the actions I take, then I become a liability to the League as well as to Robin, and to Oracle, and to all of them. My actions are bigger than me, Clark. They always have been.”

Clark still didn’t understand, and the utter frankness of Bruce’s admission, the hopelessness of it, made him feel like he was sinking faster and faster down a hole he hadn’t even seen coming.

“Can you tell me what it was that I did?”

Bruce was laughing again, a little hysterical now, and it was more than a little worrying. Bruce turned back to face him briefly, then kept walking to pace the room. “It’s not _you_ , Clark, I already said that.”

That made Clark pause, his eyebrows pinching in confusion. “Wait, is this the ‘ _it’s not you, it’s me_ ’ speech? Because if it is, I think I got lost somewhere along the way.” Bruce ran a hand roughly through his hair, looking slightly crazed. “Bruce, slow down,” Clark tried, but Bruce must have been too far gone in his own thoughts to hear because he just kept pacing back and forth with the hard look on his face.

“Bruce,” Clark repeated, this time grabbing his arm and holding him in one place.

Bruce looked down at the hand, completely still. “Let go, Clark.”

“Not until you explain what’s going on. Is this about the Man of Steel case?”

“No.” He was still looking at Clark’s hand on his arm.

Clark knew it was a stupid move, knew Bruce would _hate_ it, but he couldn’t help himself because Bruce just refused to look at him and he had had _enough_ of that. He tipped Bruce’s chin up with his finger and thumb, leaving Bruce no choice but to make eye contact.

“Then what has you so tied up in knots? Why can’t you…trust yourself around me?” He stumbled over the words getting caught up in his throat. Bruce was in pain, and that was so blatantly obvious now. Clark was beating himself inside up for not having seen it sooner.

BRUCE

Bruce always knew he was headed for hell, if such a place existed, he just hadn’t expected it to happen this soon. Clark’s hands were on his arm and his chin and Bruce hadn’t forced him away yet. Why the hell couldn’t he move? He knew that if he did, Clark would ease off without a fight, but he was frozen stiff in the face of all that raw concern and…

Whatever else that was in Clark’s eyes.

It couldn’t be affection. Bruce didn’t deserve that.

When had he lost his talent for reading faces?

Clark was practically begging Bruce to let him in, and _hell_ if that didn’t feel like a knife twisting itself deep in his gut. If nothing else, this whole ordeal was evidence enough Clark was better off without him. Any normal, sane, stable, person would be able to use their words, but none of those adjectives were often used to describe Bruce. What was worse still, Bruce _wanted_ to tell him. He wanted so badly he could taste it, and Clark was still touching him which did not help with mental clarity in the slightest.

Maybe Clark would back off if he did. If he said it. The truth. Maybe the revulsion would be enough to get him to stop looking like he cared so damn much. Clark’s heart was foolishly giving, and maybe that was why Bruce was so afraid of losing it. Not that he actually _had_ it to begin with. Sometimes he let himself imagine he did, though.

Bruce vaguely knew they had been staring in silence at each other for an awkward amount of time, but part of him, the part that was destined for hell, didn’t care. “This is the way that I am, Clark,” he said, finally.

“You think I don’t know you live to be as impossible as possible? I know, I know it all, and I’m still here. And I’m still waiting.”

Clark’s words were loaded, Bruce knew. He could hear it, could feel it in the way Clark was looking at him, and finally, _finally_ , Bruce understood.

“God dammit,” he whispered, not really meaning to.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me,” Clark threatened, and Bruce almost groaned out loud because _Clark still didn’t know_ and it would have been so, so easy to stop it there. To lie. Clark might have believed him if he had, if he had been vicious enough, cruel enough, had he been any less selfish.

But Bruce Wayne was nothing if not selfish, and he selfishly coveted that look in Clark’s eyes when he had no right to.

So he forced himself to speak, “I don’t trust myself to be able treat you like a colleague. Like a teammate.”

He saw the pause in Clark’s eyes, watched his lips pop open just slightly and hang there for a moment. Bruce pulled away immediately, wrenching his arm away and balling his fists just for something to do, anything but turn back and face Clark, but then a hand was on his shoulder, tuning him around and Clark’s lips were on his.

His body tensed for action before he knew what was happening, but then Clark was moving his lips and Bruce let out a sigh that was part frustration and part desperate hopelessness. He responded without thinking, kissing Clark back and _hell_ it was so much better feeling the warmth of Clark’s lips moving with his own than it had been on the stairs; and suddenly, without meaning to, his hands had gripped Clark’s jacket like he was holding on for dear life.

Like his whole being would shatter the second he let go.

Yet the moment he felt Clark’s hands against his neck he tore himself away again, practically jumping a safe distance away. He was panting, and Clark was staring his him with eyes as wide as saucers.

“I’m, I’m sorry,” Clark was saying quickly, backing away too, taking Bruce’s lead.

Bruce’s body shook, or maybe it was more of a shiver, and he ran his hands over his face, trying to work sense into back into his brain. Clark was still apologizing, a string of words that he wasn’t really hearing, and then Bruce couldn’t take it anymore.

“Stop, Clark.”

Clark stopped. Opened his mouth, and closed it again. “You kissed back,” he stated plainly, as if he was having trouble believing it.

Bruce didn’t answer for a moment, choosing to stare blankly at him instead, while he thought of something to say to get him out of the situation that was spiraling out of his control faster and faster with every second of eye contact. He couldn’t run out of the room, as good of an idea as that sounded, because he wouldn’t be able to do it without the rest of the manor noticing.

He tried Clark’s tactic. “You started it.”

Clark’s face was flushed, and it would have been adorable had he not been such a good kisser and Bruce’s current thoughts weren’t as far from _adorable_ as humanly possible.

“Then you backed away,” Clark added.

Were they going to replay the last five minutes? “Are you caught up now?” Bruce snarked, worried for a split second the words were too harsh, but Clark still seemed too dazed to be offended.

“Why?” he asked with his stupid blue eyes searching Bruce’s. Stupid blue eyes. Bruce couldn’t get enough of those blue eyes.

“Because this can’t happen, Clark.”

“Says who?”

Bruce just stared at him. He stared at Clark Kent, standing before him with his god damn heart on his sleeve like he wasn’t afraid of getting it ripped out from under him. Bruce was breathing heavily, and it was everything he could do to not walk forward to taste Clark again, to wipe away that helpless look on his face.

But the voice in the back of his head reminded him he would break the man standing before him the first chance he had, in all the worst ways, without ever meaning to. It would just happen. It always did, it was inevitable. No one walked away from Bruce Wayne, from Batman, without scars.

“We have a duty to the team,” Bruce said, determined to remain steadfast.

“This doesn’t change our professionalism with the League.”

“I have a duty to my city.”

“I don’t plan on keeping you as my personal slave.” With every counter argument, Clark was taking a step forward and Bruce wasn’t moving away.

“You couldn’t if you tried.”

“Exactly my point.”

“I can’t be biased.”

“When have we ever put our safety over the safety of the world?”

“I can’t _trust_ myself.”

“Why?”

“I don’t do this Clark. Not well, and not without hurting you. You and everyone around me. I don’t trust myself to know how to do this the right way.”

“I’m not asking you to do this right, I don’t know what that even is,” Clark said, his voice low, like he was afraid to say anything too loud and break the spell of the quiet room. “I’m asking you to try. With me.”

His hands were ghosting over Bruce’s arms, now. He was hesitating. They both were. When Bruce leaned into the touch despite himself, and felt the warmth there, he reached out, his hand snaking under the baggy suit jacket and finding the hard muscle of Clark’s side underneath.

“I’m going to fuck this up, Clark.”

“You couldn’t any more than it already is, Bruce.”

“Everything will change,” Bruce argued again, because he couldn’t help it.

“It already has. At least…for me it has…” Clark trailed off, sounding unsure. And that was moronic. He _had_ to know it had changed for Bruce, too. It was obvious. Yet one look into Clark’s eyes, one look at the soul crushing vulnerability in his face, and Bruce was undone.

“Idiot,” he mumbled, closing the distance with his other hand to the back of Clark’s neck, pulling him the rest of the way until he was kissing Clark. One little moan from the back of Clark’s throat was all it took for Bruce to lose the last shred of control. He opened his mouth and Clark rushed in, his tongue working in ways that made it harder to think and even harder to breathe, but Bruce pressed his body against Clark’s anyway. Clark pushed back and it felt like his body was on _fire_ with the touch.

He tore his mouth away only to drag it against Clark’s neck, up his jaw, over that damnable chin and everywhere else he could reach. Clark’s hands were roaming, too, and he the _sounds_ he was making every time Bruce’s tongue darted out or teeth grazed against skin sent Bruce’s senses alight. He made a mental map of those sounds, memorizing every touch it took to earn them.

“ _Bruce,”_ Clark exhaled, almost pleading.

Bruce pulled back (not easily done), breathing hard. Clark’s chest was rising and falling faster than Bruce had ever seen it. “It didn’t have to change for me,” Bruce said, because he needed Clark to know. He heard his own husky tone in his ears and watched as Clark’s pupils dilated.

Clark sounded breathless, too. “Do you mean that?”

“When I kissed you the first time I meant it. Even if it didn’t intend for it happen during a mission.” Bruce saw the emotion welling behind Clark’s eyes, and it was almost too much.

“Bruce, I-”

He cut Clark off, kissing him soundly until Bruce had to pull back for air and Clark fists were starting to tear Bruce’s shirt. He doubted Clark even realized what he was doing, and fuck if that wasn’t one of the hottest things he’d ever seen someone do because of _him_.

“Don’t Clark. Not now, not yet.” He’d felt his throat closing up, knowing what Clark had meant, what he was going to say, but not wanting the words. He couldn’t handle that. Not yet.

Clark’s eyes softened. He seemed to understand, and just the possibility of that made Bruce’s heart clench up like he was having a heart attack. Who knows? Maybe he was.

Clark’s hands came up to cup Bruce’s face, as gently as if he were holding something precious and breakable. Clark was looking at him as if he was…Bruce didn’t have the words. None that could have been the right ones, because Clark was looking at him as if he were beautiful. And that was…

“Ok, Bruce. Ok.”

Clark kissed him, slow and easy, as if they had all the time in the world. Bruce practically melted into him, his arms wrapping around Clark without second thought.

“This is alright?” Clark asked, looking at him intently.

And because Bruce couldn’t just let it go he said, “I’m selfish. Possessive. Complicated. None of this is going to be easy.”

Clark smiled so brightly, it knocked the air right from Bruce’s lungs. “I don’t care. I like a challenge, and if you hadn’t heard, some people even call me reckless. Really, I just don’t know when to give up.”

It was impossible to keep his face straight, to hide the answering grin that was forcing its way to the surface as Clark’s equally impossible smile just kept growing.

“Evidently not.”

“So give in,” Clark suggested, his voice low and taunting in a way Bruce didn’t think anyone expected Superman capable of.

“I’m not great at that, either.”

Clark quirked up an eyebrow, teasing. “Really? Is Bruce Wayne admitting there is something he can’t do?”

Bruce practically growled, pulling Clark closer, their chests flush against one another. “Fine.”

Clark’s eyes went a little wide, as if he was surprised, and wasn’t _that_ another sucker punch. “Fine?”

“On a trial basis.”

“Bruce…”

“Kidding.”

“You’re an ass.”

“Sweet talking me now, Kent?”

“Oh, you haven’t even _seen_ my sweet talk, Bruce.”

Bruce rolled his eyes and Clark just smiled, like this was making him happy. Then Bruce realized he was smiling too, and this time it didn’t hurt.

\----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I think people forget Arthur is a KING and I just couldn't help giving him a little presence here, since their fearless leader was out of commission. Sidenote about that scene - I chose to have only a few of their real names spoken aloud, as in my timeline most of the founders keep their secret identities a secret form the rest of the league. The exceptions being people like J'onn, Diana, and Hal. Arthur too, obviously, since it's no secret who he is in his downtime.
> 
> Also, I was most nervous about posing this chapter. This thing almost killed me.
> 
> I'm sorry I'm so bad about replying to comments, I read them all, I promise! You guys are wonderful.
> 
> Only one little chapter left, now!


	6. And Then There's Dick

DICK GRAYSON

“I can’t decide if you’re an evil genius, or just a nosy busybody,” Tim quipped from his perch on the counter top.

It was barely past four in the morning, and Dick and Tim had just seen a peculiar brown lump (one that looked like it could _really_  do with a trip to a decent tailor) shooting off in the sky, heading away from the manor. Naturally it was only a coincidence that the lump was heading in the exact direction of Metropolis.

Dick laughed, tossing a wad of paper in a smooth arc, just missing the trash can set against the far side of the kitchen. “Damn. Point, you,” he conceded. The two of them had been playing this mindless game ever since Barbara had called it a night and Alfred had gone up to bed.

He watched Tim narrow his eyes as he lined up his next shot. “I like to think I lean more towards the genius side of the equation,” he continued.

Tim’s paper wad made a satisfying _thunk_ into the can and he turned to gloat, letting out a hushed whoop. It was night after all, and Alfred had ears like a hawk. Dick rolled his eyes heavily, but Tim was unfazed.

“What I can’t believe is that Bruce didn’t even see it coming.”

“That’s because, little grasshopper, I have mad skills.”

“Or he was just too busy trying to burn holes in Clark with his eyes to notice you scheming.”

Dick shrugged, as that was probably true too. “It would have happened eventually, I was just so sick of watching them mope! There’s only so much pinning a guy can watch without committing violent acts of crime.”

Tim groaned in agreement. “The only thing that might end up being worse than watching them play the, ‘ _I’m totally not looking at you_ ’, game is watching them make disgusting heart eyes at each other from across the room.”

“You’re talking like they weren’t already doing that,” Dick added with a scoff.

“Yeah but now it’s allowed.” Tim paused, narrowing his eyes at nothing in particular as he thought. “Think this’ll mean Clark will come spar more often?”

“Oh he’ll be sparring alright, but it won’t be with you.”

Tim recoiled so hard he almost fell off the counter top. “ _Ugh_ , god, Dick! You’re disgusting. I didn’t need that visual.” He shook his head like his memory was an etch-a-sketch he could shake clear. Dick thought it was hilarious, and Tim scowled at him, ruining the effect by sticking his tongue out, too.

“I won,” Tim declared. “I’m calling it a night.”

Dick grinned. “Try to avoid walking past Bruce’s door!”

He heard Tim groan louder, making disgusted noises as he tromped not-so-silently back up the stairs. Dick chuckled to himself, shooting another paper ball at the can. Of course _now_ it went in perfectly, when it didn't matter anymore.

“You did good, Dick Grayson, you did good,” he muttered to himself with a smug grin ( _not_ shit-eating in the slightest, thank you very much Barbara) as he made his way back to his own room.

He had annoyed Tim, successfully pulled off his own version of a parent trap, and gotten a personal invite to the freaking _Fortress of Solicitude_ as a reward for his completely harmless and totally justifiable manipulation. Sure he’d taken advantage of Clark’s inherent need to make everyone around him happy and Bruce’s unspoken desire to make up for the past, but what was a little string-pulling among family?

All in all, it had been a _fantastic_ birthday.

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done. Wow. Well, the first part is anyway! Obviously there are still questions that need to be answered, and scenes I NEED this Bruce and Clark to have, and I promise whenever I get to them soon! 
> 
> But not for a little while, as I've barely started writing Part 2, and I like to have at least a solid arc typed out before I start posting. Or, you can view this as a stand-alone and if you do, I hope you're happy enough with what I've put out! I have loved these characters for years, so finally writing out head cannons is a totally new but absolutely awesome thing for me.
> 
> Your comments blew me away, honestly, I wasn't expecting all the love you threw my way and at this story but nonetheless, thankyouthankyouthankyou! <3


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